Table 2 Project descriptions, corresponding programme objective, outputs
Project | Level of partnership | Outputs | Contribution to goal/objectives |
|---|---|---|---|
Knowledge syntheses Objective: to provide the network’s research with a strong foundation based on the existing literature. Rationale: while IKT has not been extensively studied, there are relevant theories, models and frameworks; primary studies on the process of IKT; and information on how IKT can be measured, but this knowledge has yet to be synthesized in any systematic way. All knowledge syntheses will be registered in appropriate registries. | |||
1a: Comparing and contrasting integrated knowledge translation with five approaches often used in knowledge translation: identifying and synthesizing germinal literature and consulting with experts Question: What are the similarities and differences between IKT, participatory research, engaged scholarship, co-production of knowledge, Mode 2 knowledge production? Design: concept analysis Sample: germinal articles/books identified by key informants Project lead: Nguyen, Graham | N/A | Conceptual clarity on concepts | Goal 3—objective 1 |
1b: Systematic review of research engagement frameworks Question: (1) What research engagement frameworks exist? (2) What are the similarities and differences in engagement framework attributes? Design: systematic review and analysis of framework Sample: published and grey literature Project lead: Jull, Graham | N/A | Repository of research engagement frameworks Meta-engagement framework | Goal 3—objective 1 |
1c: Understanding when integrated knowledge translation works: a realist review Questions: (1) How can IKT process be theorized and evaluated? (2) What are the impacts (positive/negative) of IKT? (3) What are the mechanisms by which IKT produces impacts under what conditions? Design: realist review methods [59] Sample: published and grey literature Project lead: Kothari, Horsley* | Partnership level will be included in analysis but expect focus on researchers and research user (manager/clinician) partnerships | Evidence of effectiveness/impact Factors contributing to IKT success/failure Mechanisms by which IKT works under what conditions | Goal 1—objectives 1,2 Goal 2—objectives 1,2,3 |
1d: Guideline dissemination and implementation interventions for nursing: a systematic review Question: (1) To identify and assess the effects of the interventions employed to increase the use of practice guidelines in nursing? (2) To what extent has IKT been used as a strategy to increase guideline uptake and to what effect? Design: systematic review of the published evidence Sample: all rigorously designed randomized controlled trials of the effectiveness of strategies to influence the uptake of practice guidelines by nurses (MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, AMED, PsychINFO) Project lead: Godfrey, Graham | N/A | Evidence on the effectiveness of strategies (including IKT) to increase use of guidelines in nursing | Goal 1—objective 1 Goal 2—objectives 2,3 |
1e: What are the available tools to evaluate the partnering process in healthcare research? A scoping review Question: (1) What are the existing measures, assessments, and tools that evaluate researchers’ and stakeholders’ role, satisfaction, expectation, and contribution in healthcare research partnerships? Design: scoping review [60, 61] Sample: MEDLINE, PsyINFO, Embase, CINAHL, grey literature (government reports, websites, etc.). Project lead: Nguyen, Graham | Researcher and knowledge user (research projects) | Inventory of instruments | Goal 3—objective 2 |
Case studies Objective: to amass evidence on the process of IKT and its impact Rationale: given that an experimental study design will never be feasible or practical to use to determine the effectiveness of integrated knowledge translation or to understand how it works, other study designs are required. We have elected to conduct a number of retrospective and prospective case studies to learn how IKT works with what effect. | |||
2a: An evaluation of an academic-health services partnership network Question: (1) How does the partnership between the Deakin University Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research and Victorian Health Services work? (2) What are the impacts of such relationships? (3) What are the benefits and issues professors and health service leaders in these partnerships face? Design: retrospective case study [62,63,64,65], key informant interviews Sample: 6 partnerships Project lead: Bucknall, Hutchinson | University and health service partnerships | How does IKTR work when the partnership is at the level of a school and health service Impacts from IKT | Goal 1—objectives 1,2,3 Goal 2—objective 3 Goal 3—objective 1 |
2b: Link between knowledge user participation and impact: the case of BORN Ontario Questions: (1) How does BORN Ontario engage knowledge user organizations in co-production of Data Dashboards when not all organizations can be included on committees? (2) How do organizations without committee representation perceive their engagement with BORN? (3) Are there differences in uptake of the Dashboards among organizations that are and are not represented on committees? (4) What criteria should be used to select knowledge user representatives when all research users cannot be included? Design: retrospective and prospective case study [62,63,64,65] Sample: BORN and 10–20 stakeholder organizations Project lead: Dunn | Knowledge producer organization and knowledge user organization (BORN-Ontario hospitals) | How IKT works when both partners are organizations How IKT works when not all the user partners can be engaged because of their numbers Factors contributing to IKT success/failure Role of leadership in IKT Perspective of health/funder organizations on IKT Impacts of partnerships | Goal 1—objective 1 Goal 2—objective 3 Goal 3—objective 1 |
2c: Exploring the role of leadership and other factors in creating and sustaining a university-health authority partnership for knowledge creation, knowledge translation and organizational change Question: (1) What is the role of leadership in developing and maintaining the partnership? (2) How does leadership at different levels of the partnering organizations influence the relationship and the outcomes of the partnership? Design: secondary analysis of a longitudinal-processual analysis of a case study of two organizations; interviews with key informants [66] Sample: Northern Health-University of Northern British Columbia partnership Project lead: MacLeod, Gifford | University and regional health authority partnership | How IKT works when partners are an academic centre and regional health authority Factors contributing to IKT success/failure Role of leadership in IKT Impacts of partnership | Goal 1—objective 1 |
Experiential IKT knowledge Objective: to learn about IKT from doing it. Rationale: given that IKT is as relatively recent phenomenon and that little knowledge has been codified about how to do IKT, we believe much can be learned from those using this approach. We will be eliciting case stories from network members (researchers and knowledge users) about their experiences working in an IKT way. To focus discussion and research in the field, we will be generating a number of concept papers that identify areas in need of greater conceptualization or research. | |||
3a. IKT Casebook Question: What can we learn from researcher and knowledge user experiences using an IKT approach? Design: secondary analyses of case stories. Sample: network members Project lead: Graham, Kothari, McCutcheon, Gagnon* | All levels | IKT casebooks over the 7 years of funding Identification of factors Related to successful and unsuccessful partnerships | Goal 1—objective 1 Goal 2—objectives 2,3 |
3b. Concept papers Question: What are the issues that should be tackled to advance the science of IKT? Design: theoretical, conceptual or review papers Sample: network members Project lead: Graham, Kothari, McCutcheon, Angus* | All levels | Manuscripts highlighting gaps in IKT science | Goal 3—objective 1 |
Funder-focused studies Objective: to understand IKT and its impact by studying funded studies that required the use of an IKT approach. Rationale: important sources of data on integrated KT are studies funded through IKT funding opportunities that require knowledge user partnerships. Much can be learned from these studies about how IKT was operationalized, how the research was conducted, the experiences of researchers and knowledge users working in partnership and the results of the study. These IKT studies will also be used to study the effectiveness of these studies by identifying and analyzing their effects and impacts. Given our many knowledge user partners are research funders, we intend to exploit opportunities to identify funded IKT studies so that we may study them. | |||
4a: Advancing the science of integrated knowledge translation with health researchers and knowledge users: understanding current and developing recommendations for integrated KT practice Questions: (1) What is known about how IKT is conducted and to what effect? (2) What IKT methods have been used in funded projects with what impact? (3) What IKT methods, metrics and evaluation methods are recommended by individuals who are knowledgeable and have a vested interest in IKT? Design: explanatory mixed methods approach including: scoping review, web-survey and interviews, nominal group consensus Sample: published and grey literature, principle investigators of CIHR funded IKT grants, IKT researchers and knowledge users Project lead: Sibley, (funder, clinician, patient knowledge users) Additional funding being sought for the project. | Researchers-knowledge user partnerships | Strategies for doing IKT Evidence of IKT impact Recommendations about how to conduct and measure IKT | Goal 1—objective 1 Goal 2—objectives 1,2,3 Goal 4—objective 1 |
4b: Health research funder strategies to promote IKT and their effectiveness Question: (1) How do major funders around the globe support IKT? (2) How have funders evaluated the effectiveness/impact of their investments in IKT? (3) How have funder IKT strategies evolved overtime? Design: scan of website analysis and interviews with research funders-replication of previous funder scans [2, 43, 44] Sample: ~ 30 research funding agencies from around the world Project lead: Graham, doctoral student McLean, Holmes* | Researcher and knowledge user (research projects) | List of how funders incentivize IKT research Synthesis of funder evidence for their IKT funding programs Changes in funder approaches to IKT over a 15-year period | Goal 1—objective 2 Goal 2—objective 3 Goal 3—objective 1 |
4c: Impact of CIHR IKT funding opportunities. Questions: (1) What is the relationship between extent of knowledge engagement on iKT grants and impact on addressing CIHR’s mandate areas? Design: secondary quantitative analysis of CIHR’s KT Programme evaluation data (multiple regression) [43, 44] Sample: web-survey data from researchers and knowledge-users in the open and IKT funding opportunities Project lead: Graham, McLean, Rycroft-Malone* (funder knowledge user) | Researcher and clinician, manager, policy maker research user partnerships (CIHR PHSI, Knowledge to Action and Knowledge Synthesis grants) | Evidence on the relationship between research-user engagement and outcomes attributed to research grants | Goal 1—objective 2 Goal 2—objectives 1,3 |
4d: Researchers’ and knowledge users’ perceptions of research partnerships Question: (1) What makes a successful partnership? (2) What are barriers and facilitators to successful partnerships? (3) How can funding agencies facilitate required partnerships? Design: secondary analysis of web-based survey of CIHR researchers and knowledge users. Sample: CIHR researchers and knowledge users surveyed in 2009. Project lead: Sibbald, Graham | Researcher and knowledge user (research projects) | Factors related to successful partnerships Identified barriers and facilitators of partnerships Recommendations for funders interested in supporting IKT research | Goal 1—objective 1, 2 Goal 2—objective 2 |
Organization-focused studies Objective: to describe the experiences of IKT from the perspective of knowledge user organizations Rationale: much of the literature on researcher/knowledge user partnerships has focused on the individual who is the knowledge user partner rather than the organization that individual. Our assumption is that one of the next frontiers in IKT will focus on organizations as knowledge user partners so it is imperative to understand the partnering experiences and expectations of knowledge user organizations. | |||
5a: Understanding IKT from the perspective of organizations: a mixed methods study Questions: (1) How do organizations make decisions about who and when they should partner with researchers? (2) What is the organizational experience of researcher partnerships? Design: survey, content-analysis, focus-group interviews Sample: organizations listed on CIHR funded research projects as knowledge users. Project lead: Horsley | All 3 levels | Knowledge of perspectives and experiences with IKT process Strategies used by organizations to manage IKT Guidance on how organizations attract and work with researchers to do research on the organization’s priority areas | Goal 1—objectives 1,2 Goal 2—objectives 2,3 Goal 3—objective 1 Goal 4—objective 1 |
5b: Principles of partnering with researchers to inform substantial health system change Questions: (1) How do health authorities make decisions about which researchers to partner with and when? (2) What is the health authority experience with researcher partnerships? (3) What policies and processes do health authorities have to guide research partnership decisions? Design: website document review, web-survey, qualitative methods-interviews Sample: Canadian regional health authorities. Project lead: Botting | Researchers and health authority partnerships | Health authority perspectives and experiences with IKT processes Strategies used by organizations to manage IKT Guidance on how health authorities manage research proactively and reactively partnerships with researchers | Goal 1—objectives 1,2 Goal 2—objectives 2,3 Goal 3—objective 1 Goal 4—objective 1 |
Researcher and university-focused studies Objective: to understand the implications of using an IKT approach for researchers. Rationale: researchers report that universities tend not to incentivize researchers to do IKT and that performance metrics seldom value partnerships with knowledge users. For example, impact citation metrics are highly valued where efforts to develop, nurture and sustain partnerships with knowledge users may not be. Few data actually exist on how university performance expectations support or discourage IKT. These data could be used to highlight university barriers to IKT and encourage discussion of these barriers. | |||
6a: Are health researchers involved in research focused on uptake of research into practice reporting research translation and impact activities on their CVs? A web-survey of researchers Question: How do researchers report their KT and IKT activities in their CVs? Design: web-survey. Sample: researchers on mailing list of the international Knowledge Utilization Colloquium and the Collaborative Healthcare Improvement Partnership (CHIPs) theme group of the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research. Project lead: Stacey | N/A | Knowledge about researcher CV practices | Goal 4—objective 1 |
6b: University Schools of Nursing policies promoting or discouraging IKT Question: What university incentives and policies affect researcher involvement in IKT? Design: document analyses and key informant interviews Sample: university tenure and promotion criteria, university administrators Project lead: Banner | N/A | List of Canadian SON, and other university policies and their influence on IKT | Goal 1—objective 3 |
Measurement studies Objective: to develop, refine and validate measures to assess partnering processes and impacts of IKT Rationale: currently, validate measures of IKT partnering and measures of the impacts of IKT are lacking. Without being able to measure how well a researcher/ knowledge user partnership is functioning or the outcomes of doing IKT, the ability to develop strategies to make partnerships more effective or to demonstrate the effectiveness of IKT will remain limited. | |||
7: Developing and testing a valid, sensitive, reliable IKT questionnaire based on the Kothari et al. indicators [67, 68] Design: quantitative methods—web-survey design and psychometric testing, qualitative methods—cognitive interviewing Sample: emergent case studies Project lead: Kothari, Graham | N/A | Measures of partnership process and impact Predictors of successful partnerships | Goal 3—objective 2 |
IKT tools and capacity building Objective: to develop IKT tools and training materials for researchers and knowledge users and to increase researchers’ and knowledge users’ capacity for IKT. Rationale: the use of IKT will not increase unless researchers and knowledge users acquire knowledge about IKT and the skills to partner and work together. Building this capacity will be even more needed should studies demonstrate the value of IKT. | |||
8a: Knowledge translation plan guides: a pragmatic, conceptual synthesis Question: What guidance is provided to researchers and research-users about doing KT and IKT? Design: systematic review and document analyses Sample: funder websites, peer reviewed and grey literature Project lead: McCutcheon, doctoral student Mrklas | N/A | Repository of KT and IKT guidance documents Analysis comparing documents to facilitate decisions about usefulness of each | Goal 4—objective 1 |
8b: Development and field testing of IKT training modules for researchers and knowledge users: identifying competencies for integrated knowledge translation Question: (1) What are IKT competencies for researchers (students and early career) and knowledge users? (2) What are researchers’ and knowledge users’ preferred instructional strategies to learn IKT competencies? (3) How effective are IKT training modules? Design: literature review, key informant interviews, Delphi methods, pre/post evaluation Sample: convenience sample of researchers and knowledge users, network members Project lead: Yeung, doctoral students Plamondon and Mrklas (knowledge users) | N/A | List of IKT competencies Training modules | Goal 4—objectives 1,2 |
8c: Conducting patient-oriented research: an online tutorial for the use of a collaborative framework for community-research partnerships Question: (1) What should be the guiding features for researcher-indigenous community research partnerships? (2) What guidance should be provided to researchers and indigenous partners about working in an IKT way? Design: theory and literature based, user testing Sample: an advisory group of indigenous people Project lead: postdoc Jull, Graham, indigenous knowledge users Funding by the Ontario Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) Support Unit | Researcher-knowledge user (indigenous patients and communities) | Training module | Goal 4—objectives 1,2 |
8d: Experiences of patient-researcher partnerships in integrated knowledge translation: a study to develop online training for patient-oriented research Question: (1) What are patient and researchers experiences as research partners? (2) What guidance should be provided to researchers and knowledge-users about doing KT and IKT? Design: qualitative methods—interviews, pedagogical theory Sample: 15 patients and 15 researchers Project lead: Law, Wright, Graham Funding by the Ontario SPOR Support Unit | Researcher-knowledge user (patient) | Understanding of the experiences of patients and researchers of patient-researcher partnerships Two scalable training modules for patients and researchers on how to manage patient-researcher partnerships | Goal 4—objectives 1,2 |
Emergent projects during 2nd half of grant  - Emergent partnership case study  - Emergent partnership case study  - Developing and testing theory-based strategies/interventions to increase knowledge user partnering with researches and to increase capacity to use research  - Other emergent studies | Depends on the case TBD | How IKT works or does not work Factors contributing to IKT success/failure Role of leadership in IKT Impacts of partnerships Strategies proven effective at increasing organizations’ capacity to partner with researchers and to use research findings | Goal 1—objectives 1,2 Goal 2—objective 3 Goal 3—objectives 1,2 Goal 3—objectives 1,2 Goal 3—objective 3 TBD |
Project: Meta-synthesis of program projects findings | All 3 levels | Science and practice of IKT greatly advanced Canada recognized as a leader in studying IKT | Has potential to address objectives from goals 1–3 |