The recently published book, The Rise of Knowledge Brokers in Global Education Governance, co-edited by Chanwoong Baek and Gita Steiner-Khamsi, is the sixth volume of the NORRAG Series on International Education and Development. Examining the evolving roles of knowledge brokers in education at a time when there is a greater emphasis on evidence-based policymaking, the book discusses the various organizations and actors across the world that have expanded and redefined their roles around knowledge brokerage. We had the chance to sit down with Chanwoong Baek, a PhD graduate of the International and Comparative Education program at Teachers College and a current Assistant Professor of International Relations/Political Science at the Geneva Graduate Institute. He also serves as the Academic Director of NORRAG and UNESCO Co-Chair in Comparative Education Policy. His work on knowledge production, use, and translation has deeply shaped the framing and focus of this book, which offers an analytic lens to critically investigate the politics and practices of knowledge brokerage.
Chanwoong’s interest in this topic began during his time at the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI), where he witnessed the dynamics of evidence-based policymaking and observed the ways knowledge travels across institutional and geographical boundaries. These observations led him to his doctoral research where he investigated knowledge utilization in education policymaking. He employed a bibliometric network analysis and “network-cued” interviews, to examine the structures, actors, and contents shaping knowledge-use in the policy process in the United States, South Korea, and Norway. POLNET was another project that significantly shaped his interests and understanding of evidence use in education policy. This project, led by Kirsten Sivesind at the University of Oslo and funded by the Research Council of Norway, examined how evidence is produced, shared, and utilized in Nordic education reforms. The researchers on this project, along with Chanwoong, traced the relationships between key policy documents, their references, and the broader networks of knowledge producers and policy actors, using social network analysis as a methodology. They found that the results of these projects highlighted the political, social, and institutional contexts and scripts within each country in understanding evidence use.
More recently, he participated in a strategic review project commissioned by UNESCO for the Global Education Cooperation Mechanism High-Level Steering Committee, in which his team investigated how the use of evidence, both globally and locally, can promote the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4: enhancing quality education. In this project, they identified disconnects in the use of evidence in education policy, specifically regarding the gap between knowledge production and utilization, global supply and local demand, and the Global North and the Global South. The project’s findings called for more local and equitable approaches to knowledge brokerage, which has a close connection to his current work and the recently published book.
Today, as Academic Director of NORRAG and UNESCO Co-Chair in Comparative Education Policy, Chanwoong finds himself uniquely positioned—between research, policy, and practice—at the forefront of knowledge brokerage. NORRAG and the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Education Policy aim to co-produce and broker knowledge while connecting stakeholders across diverse contexts and facilitating academic and policy dialogue and partnerships, particularly focusing on addressing systemic inequalities in knowledge production and utilization. These roles have allowed him not only to understand and examine knowledge brokerage but also to advance knowledge equity.
The Rise of Knowledge Brokers in Global Education Governance builds on these experiences. The book aims to contribute to our understanding of knowledge brokerage through the analysis of the roles and strategies of various knowledge brokers, the influence of contextual factors, and the implications for equity and inclusion. The book features contributions from a wide range of sectors, including academia, international organizations, governments, NGOs, and foundations with a broad array of perspectives, experiences, and analyses of knowledge brokerage, which positions itself as a knowledge broker on this topic.
More specifically, The Rise of Knowledge Brokers in Global Education Governance addresses a key challenge of modern governance: the surplus of evidence (Lubienski, 2019), or what Malin and Lubienski even call “information pollution” (2022). Interestingly, recent studies have argued that the problem is not a lack of evidence but rather a lack of evidence that is relevant and trustworthy, or perhaps too much evidence that enables cherry-picking. In this context, knowledge brokers may play an important role in navigating the abundance of information by gathering, repackaging, and translating knowledge, but this process is often shaped significantly by the needs and interests of policymakers, various interest groups, and also themselves. Their roles range from communicators bridging researchers and policymakers to boundary spanners navigating the blurred lines between knowledge production, brokerage, and use, and these roles have changed over time and space. Intergovernmental organizations, such as the World Bank, OECD, and IDRC, have systematically contributed to knowledge brokerage with their strategies of knowledge production, management, and dissemination. Private, non-state actors have also emerged as prominent knowledge brokers in recent years as exemplified by the Jacobs Foundation’s Education Evidence Labs. The case of school vouchers in the United States, by contrast, offers a more critical viewpoint on how private actors package and promote research evidence, regardless of its quality, to advance particular policy agendas.
While examining diverse perspectives, institutional logics, and contextual factors regarding knowledge brokerage, the book calls for “skepticism about the discourse of ‘evidence,’” rejecting the assumption of the apolitical nature of evidence and the linearity of policymaking, to borrow the term from Maren Elfert’s commentary chapter. It critically examines inequalities embedded in knowledge production and access, as well as the risks of bias and misrepresentation in evidence use. Additionally, the book emphasizes the importance of contextualizing evidence and amplifying marginalized and local expertise through the cases of Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Reflecting on whose voices and which bodies of knowledge are prioritized and why, as well as how power dynamics influence policymaking, this book aims to spark a critical engagement with the politics of knowledge and the growing prominence of knowledge brokers in shaping global education governance.
In conclusion, The Rise of Knowledge Brokers in Global Education Governance serves as both a critical analysis and a call to action, highlighting the evolving role of knowledge brokers in shaping education policymaking. Drawing from Chanwoong Baek’s research and leadership, the book critically examines the dynamics of evidence production, dissemination, and utilization across diverse global contexts. Chanwoong’s unique perspective, shaped by his work with NORRAG, UNESCO Chair, and various international collaborations, provides a unique perspective on the power structures, inequalities, and political influences that underlie knowledge brokerage. By emphasizing knowledge equity, inclusion, and the amplification of marginalized voices, the book offers valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike, paving the way for more inclusive and contextualized approaches to global education governance.
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