ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of a pilot project, based in England, which connected teachers with researchers through Evidence for the Frontline (E4F), a research brokerage service. The service was designed to encourage teachers to engage with research to support their practice in school. It allowed teachers to pose questions that research might answer, answers to which were provided by researchers and subsequent dialogue was encouraged. This chapter begins with an introduction to the English policy context before going on to detail the history of this brokerage service, including a summary of the research that shaped the way it was designed. The chapter discusses how the service was developed with a group of schools over a six-month period before being launched to 32 schools across England. The authors reflect on the engagement from these schools, and their experience of trying to run a research brokerage service like this. Challenges faced included the volume and types of questions asked, the level of dialogue that took place and the ways in which the brokerage service was embedded in different schools. These issues have implications not just for E4F but for those wishing to develop and scale up research brokerage services internationally.
