Rural development practitioners, local governments, and community organizations rely on timely, accessible, and evidence-based knowledge to support decision-making and advance rural prosperity. Yet too often, critical research remains difficult to access or understand, creating a gap between academic research and real-world practice. This knowledge translation and transfer research initiative examines how effectively research summaries convey knowledge, data, and evidence to rural development audiences across Ontario.
The initiative will create and test both human-generated and artificial intelligence AI –generated plain language research summaries based on emerging rural development research knowledge. The initiative will focus on a wide range of rural development topics through engagement with diverse rural actors, including municipal staff and elected officials, businesses and business-serving organizations, and nonprofit and community groups. Through surveys and engagement activities, the project will assess how different audiences perceive the clarity, usefulness, and credibility of each type of summary.
By strengthening how research is communicated, this initiative aims to improve knowledge mobilization, support informed decision-making, and contribute to more resilient rural economies and communities across Ontario.
Research Objectives
This project will pursue five core objectives:
- To identify key rural development themes and priorities through focus groups with practitioners, government staff, businesses, and community organizations.
- To evaluate how effectively human-written and AI-generated research summaries communicate knowledge, data, and evidence.
- To assess audience preferences, trust, and usability of different summary formats.
- To explore the role and potential of artificial intelligence as a tool for knowledge mobilization in rural development.
- To build knowledge translation and transfer capacity among graduate students through mentorship and applied research.
Research Team and Partners
This collaborative initiative brings together researchers, government partners, and rural development organizations, including:
- Josh Barrett (Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation),
- Laurie Brinklow (Institute of Island Studies, University of Prince Edward Island),
- Richard Gibson (Ontario Ministry of Rural Affairs)
- Ryan Gibson (School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph),
- Varinder Nandhra (School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph),
- Karla Uliana (Ontario Ministry of Rural Affairs)
- Kelly Vodden (Environmental Policy Institute, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University)
Anticipated Benefits
This initiative will generate three key outcomes:
- New insights into how research summaries can better support rural decision-making
- Evidence on the strengths and limitations of artificial intelligence in generating plain language research summaries
- Enhanced training and mentorship opportunities for graduate students in knowledge mobilization
- Rural municipal staff and elected officials, provincial government staff, students, and researchers will benefit from improved access to research, clearer communication tools, and new knowledge about the use of AI in translating research for practice.
Project Outputs
- Project Summary/Overview (forthcoming)
Acknowledgement
This research is funded by the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance, a collaboration between the Government of Ontario and the University of Guelph.