In recent years, there has been a growing global interest in promoting the use of research findings to improve educational practice. From the perspective of Evidence Informed Practice, it is essential to strengthen the use of academic research findings by practising teachers, building capacities that enable them to access, understand and critically evaluate research findings in order to implement actions relevant to their educational contexts (Brown & Ion, 2022).

Brown & Ion (2022) argue that to encourage the use of research results by teachers, it is necessary to implement models that consider the perspective of both teachers and researchers, and that incorporate the perspective and potential of other key actors within education systems, who can play a role connecting the system's stakeholders.

From the perspective of Vanderlinde & Van Braak (2010), these actors that connect these two worlds, or knowledge brokers, play a central role in the incorporation of the results of academic research into educational practice. The relevance of the focus on brokers is that it complicates the web of actors that can participate in the process of connecting the worlds of research and practice in schools. Brown & Malin (2022), Farley-Ripple (2021) and Rycroft-Smith (2022) point out that there is a lack of knowledge about the specific practices of knowledge brokering, and the impact they generate, as not enough attention has been paid to them.

In this research, it has been decided to use the concept coined by Cooper (2016) of Research Brokers Oganisations to refer to a specific group of organisations that work as intermediaries of academic research results. For the author, it is essential that institutions make explicit in their working model the intention to intermediate between academic research and educational practice.

A relevant aspect to consider when analysing brokering practices is that the reality of education systems is heterogeneous and serves specific political and administrative contexts. This means that the identification of actors, the typology of actors and the processes that facilitate or obstruct the connection between the two worlds must be investigated in their own context. In a global investigation of education systems and the use of research results at the global level, Brown & Malin (2022) have identified 4 types of education systems: hierarchical systems, individualistic systems, egalitarian systems and fatalistic systems. The latter are the least prone to the use of research results, and at the same time, they are where knowledge brokers can have the greatest impact. 

The Chilean education system falls into the fatalistic systems, as it is characterised by low collaboration among its actors and by the strong presence of standardised evaluation to assess teaching practice (Bellei, 2015; Brown & Malin, 2022).

Therefore, this research seeks to contribute to the identification of models and practices of intermediation of research results developed in the context of a fatalistic system (Chile), and to analyse the impact that these practices produce in the generation of conditions for schools to promote educational practices informed by research.

1. Which institutions in the Chilean education system carry out practices of intermediation of research results to schools?

2. How do the institutions of the Chilean education system carry out the intermediation of research results?

3. What impact do the different models of intermediation have on the development of conditions to foster the use of research results for educational improvement?

This doctoral research is situated in a descriptive and interpretative positioning. Seeks to achieve an in-depth understanding of the models, strategies and practices of academic knowledge brokering that they carry out, together with an analysis of the impact that these practices have in promoting the development of research-informed teaching practices. A mixed, multiple and instrumental case study is proposed (Coller, 2005). In order to meet the proposed objectives, the following research stages will be developed: 1) Mapping of institutions that carry out brokering of academic research results, 2) Characterisation of the brokering practices carried out by the identified institutions, 3) Analysis of the impact of the brokering practices on the development of conditions to promote the use of research results in the educational practice. The mapping of the institutions will be done on the basis of the information published on their website. This decision is based on the methodological proposal put forward by Cooper (2016). From the documentary analysis of all the websites, those that are declared to work as research brokers organisations will be identified and typologies of organisations will be drawn up according to the brokering strategies they carry out. Based on the results obtained from the clustering of the institutions, 2 institutions will be selected for each intermediation model identified in order to carry out a case study that will provide an in-depth understanding of the practices of intermediation of academic research results. The selection of institutions will be made by prioritising those that are closest to the ideal types constructed for each model detected. In order to carry out an in-depth analysis of each case, the institutional documents that detail their working models will be analysed. In addition, professionals will be interviewed in order to delve deeper into their practices of brokering, and participant observation will be carried out in instances in which the institutions previously stated that they work with research results. To analyse the impact of brokering practices on the conditions of schools to incorporate research results into teaching practice, information will be collected from schools that are working with the institutions that are part of the case study. Teachers working in the selected schools will be surveyed. The survey is expected to gather information on teachers' perceptions of the contribution of research to the improvement of educational practice, and their self-perception of their ability to incorporate research results into their practice.

This communication is part of an ongoing doctoral research project. Through the proposed research, the following outcomes are expected to be obtained: - A mapping of the institutions that operate as knowledge brokers in the context of a low-collaborative educational system. - A characterisation of the specific intermediation strategies and practices that foster the use of academic research results in educational practice. - An analysis of the effect that intermediation strategies and practices have on the generation of conditions for the use of research results in educational institutions. The results obtained in the first stage of the fieldwork show that less than 10% of the institutions dedicated to educational improvement in Chile declare that they carry out brokering actions of research results. The strategies most frequently used by the institutions that declare to intermediate are centred on the incorporation of research results into products and services. The least used are those that generate capacities in educational institutions to understand and critically evaluate research results. According to the type of strategies reported by the institutions, 4 groups are identified: 1) Brokers focused on the dissemination of research results, 2) brokers focused on the incorporation of research results into products and services, 3) brokers that promote the link between researchers and teachers, and 4) complete brokers, which use dissemination, incorporation and linkage strategies. The institutions for the case study have already been identified, and contact with them is currently being initiated for the collection of information. Based on the results of this research, it is hoped to identify good practices in the intermediation of research results, which will be useful both for the Chilean system and for other systems that could be qualified as fatalistic for the use of research results, such as Denmark, Germany or Australia (Brown & Malin, 2022).

Brown, C., & Ion, G. (2022). Práctica educativa informada por la investigación: Cómo ayudar a los educadores a comprometerse con la investigación para el bien común. Revista de Educación, 397, 239-260. Brown, C. & Malin, J (eds). (2022) The emerald handbook of evidence-informed practice in education. Bingley, Inglaterra: Emerald Publishing. Cooper, A. (2016). A Tool to Assess and Compare Knowledge Mobilization Efforts of Faculties of Education, Research Brokering Organizations, Ministries of Education, and School Districts. Brock Education Journal, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.26522/brocked.v25i1.441 Coller, X. (2005). Estudio de casos (2. ed). Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas. Farley-Ripple, E. N. (2021). A new day for education research and practice. Phi Delta Kappan, 102(7), 8-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/00317217211007331 Rycroft‐Smith, L. (2022). Knowledge brokering to bridge the research‐practice gap in education: Where are we now? Review of Education, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3341 Vanderlinde, R., & van Braak, J. (2010). The gap between educational research and practice: Views of teachers, school leaders, intermediaries and researchers. British Educational Research Journal, 36(2), 299-316. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920902919257