An Inter-professional Learning Network for the Land-Based Professions

Field advisors play a key role in enhancing the skills and development of tens of thousands of farming and land management businesses, now a key imperative for government and industry. However, advisors themselves face complex and ever changing calls on their expertise and must keep their knowledge up to date. At the same time, research funders are heavily investing in major research programmes into land use challenges, including food security and mitigation of and adaptation to environmental change, but they lack effective means and models for research delivery and processes of knowledge transfer and exchange.

Through a series of knowledge exchange activities the Follow-on project will build a learning network between researchers and land-based professionals. The project will draw upon research findings from the ESRC funded 'Science in the Field' research project. Science in the Field considered three groups of specialist advisors - veterinarians, applied ecologists and land agents/surveyors - and their role as knowledge brokers between scientific research and land management. The research has shown how advisory services are facing a number of key problems:

(i) The advisory landscape is now characterised by a fragmented system of field advisers which poses problems of coordination and interprofessional working;

(ii) There has been a move away from state sponsored agricultural extension, but there remains a lack of a coherent model of knowledge transfer, particularly to inform the professional training and renewal of field advisers;

(iii) Research agendas have become disconnected from technical dissemination capacities, and vice versa. There is a lack of institutional linkage between research and professional development.

The Follow-on Project will aim to address these problems by enhancing the knowledge development and inter-professional learning of field advisors. More specifically, it will:

1. Learn from experiences of inter-professional working to identify the implications for training and professional development and the demand and scope for long term networks for knowledge exchange;

2. Identify opportunities for enhancing the knowledge renewal of advisers and test the prospects for giving greater recognition to on-the-job learning within formal training provision;

3. Highlight ways to improve knowledge exchange between the professions and research community, including systems of professional training and research decision making.

The project will involve a range of knowledge exchange activities, including learning workshops, an e-learning forum, testing of CPD materials and extensive dissemination of the implications of the project through publication of a Policy and Practice Note. It will closely involve, and be advised throughout, by stakeholders and field advisers from across the professions who have expressed strong support for the project.

Outcomes of the work will be improved linkages between the land-based professions and academic research communities and identification of effective approaches and techniques for knowledge exchange. Through improvements to advisor learning and training the project will lead to enhanced advice to farming and land management businesses.

Through improvements to systems of advisor learning and training the project will lead to enhanced advice to support the economic, environmental and social contributions of farming and land management businesses. There will be many beneficiaries, including professional bodies and associations (e.g. Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors, Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management), advisory and skills organisations (such as the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group, the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service, Lantra and the Royal Agricultural Society of England), training providers (colleges, vet schools, universities), Government Departments and agencies (such as Defra and Natural England), and individual field advisers from the public, private and third sectors.

In summary, there are four key groups who will benefit both directly and indirectly from the Follow-on project:

1) Project partners and user panel members
The user partners will provide advice and guidance on the direction of the project. Some will take part in a user panel which will meet up to three times over the course of the project and help to facilitate the learning workshops. Others will provide advice to the project and play a strategic role in helping to disseminate outputs. The user panel will include professional and advisory bodies as well as individual field advisers from the three professions. The partners and user panel members stand to benefit from the project through new perspectives on skills and knowledge renewal and enhanced knowledge exchange with different professional groups as well as the research community.

2) Professional bodies, advisory organisations and field advisers
Aside from those involved as user partners, a range of professional bodies, associations, advisory and skills organisations, and advisers will be invited to participate in the learning workshops and e-learning forum. In re-thinking processes of knowledge renewal and developing new perspectives on inter-professional and on-the-job learning, they will be able to take these insights and communicate the outcomes from the project to their professions and broader systems of professional learning and development. The project will also build new inter-professional networks and strengthen links between professional and research communities to facilitate better knowledge exchange. Given that the links are currently variable at best, this is a significant benefit to be generated from the project. It is intended that the connections forged at the learning workshops and the e-learning forum will be maintained beyond the life of the project and this will be a specific matter for the project user panel to consider.

3) Training providers
For educationalists, the project will promote new training materials and generate recommendations for advisor training reform. For training providers who make a business out of running continuing professional development courses, the project will provide an arena in which to consider existing and future approaches to knowledge renewal. If a demand for training in the fields of on-the-job learning and inter-professional working is established, these training providers stand to benefit economically from developing new courses.

4) Farmers and land managers
The project has the potential to generate significant economic benefits for thousands of farmers and land managers by improving the quality of advice delivered to them. The learning workshops will connect the professional and research communities and facilitate improved knowledge exchange between the groups. This will help to ensure advice is grounded in the latest research and research is informed by what is happening in practice.