Table 2 Summary of results
From: Knowledge mobilisation in practice: an evaluation of the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre
Knowledge mobilisation strategies | Key governance and implementation strategies | Strengths and achievements | Stakeholders’ perceptions of benefits | Challenges and potential areas for improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Partnerships | • Involve partners in planning and governance • Require partners to commit resources so they have ‘skin in the game’ • Leverage existing cross-sector relationships to establish project teams, reach potential partners and create a networked platform • Connect with new partners and support current relationships | • Considerable growth in investigator team and partner organisations • Increased funding and resources from partners and government • Perception that skills are used effectively in the partnership and that the Centre’s benefits outweigh its costs | • Most interviewed policy-makers and funders regard the Centre’s work as useful, innovative and important • Policy-makers valued opportunities to shape research, access resources and forge connections within a collaborative network • Researchers valued linkage with (and more likely impact on) policy | • Partnership governance could be more transparent • Greater awareness of conflict resolution options needed • Some policy-makers found it hard to attend forums or to be ‘heard’ at them • Some uncertainty across stakeholders about how to tap into the Centre’s network |
2. Engagement | • Funding teams of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners to work together • Interactive and networking forums for researchers, policy-makers and funders • Strategic communications, e.g. website, newsletters, narrative reports, policy/practice-friendly research summaries • Co-ordination and administrative support to link projects, manage funding and partnership agreements, and act as contacts for queries | • Partners see value in committing their time to the Centre and believe their abilities are being used effectively • Partners are getting the information needed to stay abreast of developments and opportunities, and to contribute meaningfully to the Centre • Most partners feel the Centre has a clear vision | • Access to high quality resources that are relevant and applicable to policy work • Awareness of Centre developments and opportunities • Engagement with systems science and other innovations • Access to online networked events and practice groups, and mentoring by Centre staff | • It has been hard to create a shared vision for all partners • Stakeholders can struggle to identify relevant projects or get involved in projects • Geographic distance from metropolitan areas and the coordination hub is a barrier • Belief that the partnership is achieving more than partners could do alone has decreased |
3. Capacity and skills | • Dedicated capacity-building staff develop resources, run events and provide mentoring • Expert-run workshops and webinars • Cross-project forums and networks, including a community of practice in applied systems thinking • Investment in early-career researcher development (scholarships, postdoctoral fellowships and funding to attend conferences) • Cross-sector placements | • Capacity-building activities are frequent, varied, well-attended and well-received (e.g. perceived as useful and a good use of participants’ time) • High levels of reported satisfaction with the Centre’s communications, resources and capacity-building activities | • Access to national and international experts • Development and application of new knowledge and skills, e.g. in ‘real word’ research methods and systems approaches • Better understanding of the research-policy interface • Access to educational resources | • Cross-sector placements are hard to secure, often due to incompatible organisational requirements |
4. Co-production | • Encourage cross-sector investigator project teams • Shape projects and collaborative opportunities around partners’ developing agendas • Host roundtable events and exchanges between researchers, policy-makers and practitioners to foster collective work and debate | • Multiple projects are engaged in cross-sector co-production • Many policy-makers are involved with different levels of seniority participating in different ways • Most policy-makers report examples of genuine co-production in which they saw themselves as full partners • Partners identify innovations arising from co-production | • Co-production allows partners to shape project directions (especially via shared priority-setting), gain access to expertise and resources, increase mutual learning and share ideas • Dramatically improved research relevance • Translation of research to policy is ‘built-in’ • Involvement in priority-setting justifies policy-makers’ time commitments | • Projects are less attuned to the needs of non-funding policy-makers as they are less involved in co-production • Different views of co-production: is it shared decision-making or generating research questions collectively or co-conducting research? • Greater facilitation of shared decision-making and problem-solving may be warranted • Co-production challenged by personalities, competing time frames and its own logistics |
5. Knowledge integration | • Discussion forums to create linkages and synergies across current and future projects • Resourcing for high quality strategic evidence synthesis and communication • Dedicated roles and tasks regarding forging project connections, synthesising research findings and sharing knowledge | • To some extent, discussion forums are facilitating linkage and information-sharing | • In some cases, there are synergies across multiple projects | • More work is needed to create linkage, consolidate findings from separate projects and forge a coherent prevention narrative |
6. Adaptive learning and improvement | • Evaluation: surveys, social network analyses, stakeholder interviews, process measures, key performance indicators and events feedback • Collate formal and incidental feedback in a register • Distribute evaluation results and discuss in Centre forums to ‘close the loop’ and enable action • Build reflection into the Centre’s quarterly reporting procedures | • There is some evidence of the Centre’s adaptivity and increasing flexibility | • In some cases, a dynamic and policy-responsive work plan | • More use could be made of evaluation information • Greater transparency at the executive level could help partners to see what information is considered and how it is acted on |