What knowledge are we privileging in academic literature, and is it time to flip it? 

As an academic, much of my career has been about generating knowledge. You collect data, analyse it, publish it in journals, and hope those insights make their way to the people who can use them. But too often they don’t… 

It’s been three months since I began my new journey as Director of Impact, Engagement and Innovation at Greenhouse Sports, and I’ve been reflecting.  Not on a particularly new issue – just one that’s become even more apparent given where I now stand. 

The “knowledge translation gap”. 

This is when valuable findings stay within academic circles, while the people working directly with those who may benefit from them (teachers, coaches, charities) rarely see them. Or if they do see them, they are written in a way that is often devoid of the complexity, nuance and messiness of their world. Journal articles are structured to meet publishing and academic conventions, not the needs of possible end users. Language can be inaccessible and in the worst cases, the articles themselves are inaccessible – sitting behind huge paywalls. Or, the findings are presented through social media, summarised in a 1-page summary, an infographic, a 5-minute video – developed to make for quick reading and engagement, but missing the detail needed to really use the findings in practice. 

This gap has real consequences. Previous learning isn’t being used to enhance programmes, to maximise impact, to enhance lives.  

But even if we work out how to remove, or even just reduce, this gap, there’s another layer on top. And this layer is troubling me even more.  

Academic insights are still dominated by narrow, homogenous populations (typically middle-class, two-parent families) – especially in the field of sport. Yet the children and families who would benefit from evidence-based programming, who most need support, those growing up in poverty or facing multiple disadvantages, those “hard to reach populations”, are frequently excluded from the datasets that underpin research. 

As a result, if charities do manage to engage with academic research, the value may be minimal, especially if we keep collecting data from those who are easiest to study, not those who stand to benefit the most. 

Since moving into the third sector, I’ve also seen the other side of this coin. At Greenhouse Sports, where I now lead on impact, innovation, and engagement, we embed positive youth development programmes in schools across areas of high deprivation. Our Coach-Mentors work every day with young people who are navigating poverty, exclusion, and instability at home. In doing so, they – and us as a charity – generate a wealth of insights about behaviour, attendance, and life skills. These insights rarely make it into academic journals but are every bit as valuable. They are not insights that come from laboratories or short-term studies, but from daily lived experience over years. 

This has sparked a fundamental question: whose knowledge do we privilege?  

Academic findings, however robust, are incomplete if they fail to capture the voices of those most affected or are presented without appropriate context. Practitioner insights, meanwhile – the observations of coaches, teachers, youth workers – are often dismissed as anecdotal, or “less rigorous”. This hierarchy leaves young people, particularly those in disadvantaged communities, lost in the middle. Their lived experiences are neither adequately captured in research nor fully recognised in practice. 

Charities like Greenhouse do not just measure impact simply to satisfy funders or tick accountability boxes – but to learn, adapt, strengthen what we do, and advocate for young people whose experiences are too often invisible in formal research.  

Our work is grounded in evidence, but it is evidence that looks different – contextual, human. It does not fit neatly into controlled trials, but it tells us with clarity what support young people need to thrive. 

The call here is not to diminish academic research. On the contrary, it is to build a stronger bridge between the academy and the third sector. It is to encourage both sectors to embrace the insights from the populations we are supporting in all and every manner we can, with the shared mission of improving society.  

Academics and policy makers need to recognise that the insights generated in charities and schools are not a poor cousin to academic evidence; they are a critical complement to it. Bridging these perspectives can give us a fuller picture of what works for all young people, not just the most studied ones. 

There is also a challenge for academics themselves. If research is to drive meaningful change, it must be designed with, not just about, the communities it seeks to serve. That means valuing the voices of young people in deprived areas, co-creating knowledge with those on the ground, and ensuring findings are not left to gather dust in journals, but translated into practice in meaningful and valuable ways. It means seeking opportunities to engage directly with charities and the third sector, not just through social media, but through meaningful exchanges. 

Ultimately, evidence is only as useful as its impact on real lives. The young people growing up in our schools and communities already hold the answers to many of our questions. Coaches, teachers, and charities are witnesses to those answers every day. The task ahead is to listen differently, to challenge the privilege we give to certain forms of knowledge, and to reimagine impact measurement as a partnership. 

If we do that, we will not only strengthen organisations like Greenhouse Sports. We also create the possibility of policies and practices that genuinely meet the needs of every child, including those who have too often been left out of the picture.