GROWING TOGETHER: HOW THE NNERPP COMMUNITY IS EXPANDING THE BROKERING HANDBOOK
“Brokering” in research-practice partnerships (RPPs) involves a set of practices enacted by those who serve as key connectors between research and practice in order to cultivate and maintain the relationships needed to effectively support research production and use (Wentworth et al., 2023). These practices, and the professionals engaging in them, are thus an essential part of supporting the work of RPPs and improvements in education. We have been deeply exploring brokering practices and how to support RPP brokers as a NNERPP community since 2017, with more focused work to create resources and specialized learning communities in recent years. In this article, we share the context for this work and highlight four new cases or vignettes that we just added to our collection of use cases shared by NNERPP members. These use cases demonstrate what the actual work of brokering in existing RPPs can look like.
EXPLORING RPP BROKERING WITH THE NNERPP COMMUNITY
To recap, we have examined RPP brokering in previous NNERPP Extra articles, including in this early spotlight on the role of brokers in RPPs from 2019 and this examination of different roles in RPPs from 2021, and introduced version 2.0 of the Brokers Handbook in this 2022 NNERPP Extra article, with a spotlight on the open-access book for brokering in RPPs following in 2023. Both the handbook and the subsequent open-access book were created alongside the NNERPP community: The RPP Brokers Handbook was our first effort to present a practical, research- and experience-informed resource that clarifies the various activities that collectively make up RPP brokering. As a follow-up to that effort, we then helped lead the creation of the Routledge-published open-access Brokering in Education Research-Practice Partnerships: A Guide for Education Professionals and Researchers (2023). Both books, along with presenting a brokering framework, highlight key brokering activities grouped into two overarching domains: 1) brokering to strengthen partners and 2) brokering to strengthen partnerships. Importantly, they also contain over 60 cases written by NNERPP members and friends describing the key moments, tools, and vignettes related to their RPP brokering practice and covering all aspects of the brokering framework.
In an effort to continue to build knowledge on brokering and share best partnership practices, NNERPP launched the RPP Brokering Subnetwork in March 2023. Open to NNERPP members as well as non-members, the subnetwork meets quarterly and features a “guest broker” who shares a brokering challenge with the group that addresses one or more aspects of the brokering framework. We invite the guest broker to highlight a specific challenge or puzzle that they would like the subnetwork to think about with them. Following a brief presentation of the RPP context and challenge, participants use a modified version of a critical friends conversation protocol to discuss the brokering challenge and share their own experiences and thoughts for the guest broker.
The subnetwork has supported learning for subnetwork members in a couple of ways: (1) the guest broker has an opportunity to get feedback about a specific challenge of their brokering practice from folks across a variety of contexts and lived experiences, and (2) subnetwork members learn with and from each other as they hear from guest brokers and contribute their own insights and experiences. Beginning in January 2025, we added a third means of knowledge sharing by asking our guest brokers to write up a short summary of the brokering challenge that they shared with the subnetwork in the form of a case. The written cases were then added to an index of cases, which we originally created to organize the cases highlighted in the brokering handbook. The index includes all of the vignettes and tools currently available in the brokering nandbook (and now our four new cases!), organized by the themes and subthemes of the Brokering Framework. Each tool or vignette is linked in Column A. A check mark (✔) in Columns C through V indicates that the resource addresses one or more aspects of the Brokering Framework. Additionally, users can add a filter to sort the spreadsheet by any aspects of the Brokering Framework using the column headers in Row 4.
FOUR NEW BROKERING CASES
The four new cases developed across the 2024-25 Brokering Subnetwork meetings were authored by Hayley Weddle of the State Leadership for Multilingual Learner (ML) Equity RPP, Lindsey Bravo of the NYC Early Childhood Research Network, Pallavi Chhabra and Alexandra Boyd of the St. Louis Research-Practice Collaborative, and Laura Wentworth and Diana Mercado-Garica (California Education Partners). The cases add to our understanding of several aspects of the brokering framework, including strengthening communication pathways within and across organizations (Weddle), creating a common vision through a mapping exercise (Bravo), establishing relationships to strengthen partners in the beginning of a partnership (Chhabra and Boyd) and cultivating partnership and project relationships through match-making (Wentworth and Mercado-Garcia).
We briefly highlight each case below, along with a short reflection from the authors on what they learned from the experience of authoring and sharing a case with the Brokering Subnetwork. We invite you to explore the full cases by clicking on the respective links!
(1) Strengthening Communication in Response to Rapid Policy Shifts: RPPs are not immune to the political and social contexts surrounding them. This case describes the decision of members of one RPP to shift to alternative communication channels in order to increase the ability of its members to more fully articulate their needs in a tense political moment. The tool’s use began as a way to communicate emerging needs in real time, and it has allowed the RPP to think about communication in new and expanded ways.
- Authors’ reflection: “Writing and sharing about my experiences was a powerful opportunity to deepen my thinking and strategizing as an RPP broker. Engaging in thought partnership with other brokers was especially valuable as equity-focused RPPs become more and more politicized. Now more than ever, we need intentional brokering to sustain our work!” - Hayley Weddle
(2) Re-Energizing a Network of RPPs Using Affinity Mapping: Established RPPs sometimes find themselves at inflection points, with changes in things such as leadership, funding, partners, or policy. This case describes how one RPP, a large network of early childhood education providers, researchers, and agencies, used affinity mapping to re-center and re-invigorate its efforts. The mapping process allowed the RPP to build consensus on new priorities across its members, while also giving the RPP leadership a broader understanding of how its various members were understanding the ECE field at present.
- Authors’ reflection: “Writing the broker case helped me get clarity about the challenge our Network faces and served as a reminder about the intentionality behind the actions we took. Through sharing the case, I was able to see the Network’s value, our efforts, and the possibilities for moving forward in a new light. The group’s questions and actionable feedback supported our next steps.” - Lindsey Bravo
(3) Brokering for Meaningful Impact through Research-Practice Partnership: In many RPPs, those who engage in brokering have longstanding relationships with all parties, having been around since the inception of the RPP. However, it is not uncommon, especially in newer RPPs or for those newly in a brokering role, to spend a great deal of time in the dual roles of bridge-builder and learner. This case details a set of guiding questions to support learning while doing for emerging RPPs and/or emerging RPP leaders.
- Authors’ reflection: "Our experience of writing and sharing about the role of brokering in early stage RPPs gave us space to reflect on the key steps brokers can take to strengthen partners and partnerships. Guiding questions for each step helped spark deeper exploration of whether brokers' work is cyclical or linear— reminding us that brokering is an iterative process for sustaining a partnership." - Pallavi Chhabra and Alexandra Boyd
(4) Match-making Partners to Engage in Research-Practice Partnership Work: Relationship building is a continuous process in RPP brokering, and one in which the broker is often onboarding new research- and practice-side members into existing partnerships and relationships. This case describes a set of brokering moves to help “match make” new research- or practice-side partners to insure the best fit for new or existing partnerships. The match-making moves support brokering from initial stages of identifying potential partners all the way through setting up initial meetings to determine potential alignment between partners.
- Authors’ reflection: “We have so many practices and tools we use in the day-to-day work of RPP brokering. Writing the case allowed us to reflect on one brokering practice in particular, document that practice, and then share it with others engaged in RPP brokering." - Laura Wentworth and Diana Mercado-Garica
JOIN US IN OUR LEARNING JOURNEY!
If you find yourself navigating the “in-between” spaces of research-practice partnerships, we would love for you to join us as we continue to build collective brokering knowledge and support each others’ work. We invite you to:
- Read the new cases in full length here: Case 1, Case 2, Case 3, Case 4
- Peruse our full list of cases and brokering tools
- If you are not yet a Subnetwork member, sign up to attend any or all of our upcoming Brokering Subnetwork meetings (Oct 3 – 12pm CT, January 23 – 12pm CT, March 27 – 12pm CT, Oct. 2 - 12pm CT)
- Reach out to Kim Wright (kimwright@rice.edu) to join us as a “guest broker” to share your case or challenge with the Subnetwork so that you can add your case to our growing index of cases!
If you are engaging in brokering activities as part of your role in your RPP, or are interested in exploring what brokering in RPPs can look like, we hope you will join us as we continue on our learning journey!
Kim Wright is Assistant Director of the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP) and Laura Wentworth is Director of the Research-Practice Partnership Program and Director of the Stanford-SFUSD Partnership at California Education Partners.
Suggested citation: Wright, K. & Wentworth, L. (2025). Growing Together: How The NNERPP Community is Expanding the Brokering Handbook. NNERPP Extra, 7(4), 19-23.
