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Table 6 Overarching strategies of research partnerships

From: A review of reviews on principles, strategies, outcomes and impacts of research partnerships approaches: a first step in synthesising the research partnership literature

No.

Strategies

Subcategory

 

1a

Initiate partnership and identify the team members; the partnership can be initiated by researchers or stakeholders; researchers can use targeted or open strategies to identify the stakeholders

Relationship between researchers and stakeholders

Strategies throughout the research process

1b

Monitor, experiment with and evaluate the collaborative research activities on an ongoing basis

1c

Work together to develop and define norms, rules and expectations in terms of timelines and tasks; this includes defining the level of stakeholders’ engagement, roles and commitment

1d

Use a variety of activities to foster collaboration, communication and respect amongst the team members; strategies can include, but are not limited to, creating a common language, negotiating and addressing conflict, tailoring meets to the needs of the team, and providing opportunities to socialise

2a

Provide opportunities to educate and train all team members; this strategy may include training that supports capacity for collaboration or research methods

Capacity-building, support and resources

2b

Provide time, resources and funding to support the collaborative research activities; stakeholders may be paid for engagement in the research process

2c

Provide practical and emotional support to stakeholders to help overcome barriers to engagement

3a

Use a variety of methods to facilitate communication amongst team members; strategies include, but are not limited to, verbal methods (e.g. structured meetings, brainstorm sessions), written methods (e.g. email discussions, surveys) and visual methods (e.g. photovoice); this communication can be done in-person or via mediated methods (e.g. teleconference, online)

Communication between researchers and stakeholders

4a

Strategies include, but are not limited to, stakeholder engagement in identifying or refining the ‘research questions’, stakeholder engagement in development the ‘research protocol’, stakeholder engagement developing or refining ‘research instruments’ (e.g. questionnaires, interview guides) and stakeholder engagement in development of participant ‘information material’ (e.g. informed consent)

Stakeholder engagement in the planning of the research

Strategies at specific phases in the research process

5a

Strategies include, but are not limited to, stakeholder engagement in ‘data collection’ (e.g. recruitment of participants, study outcomes, conducting interviews, conducting literature review), stakeholder engagement in data analysis, and interpretation of findings

Stakeholder engagement in conducting the research

6a

Strategies include, but are not limited to, stakeholder engagement in ‘writing reports or scientific papers’ (e.g. stakeholder is co-author on a scientific paper), stakeholder engagement in ‘presenting findings’ to academic and community audiences, stakeholder engagement in a ‘developing and implementation action plan’ to ensure findings are used, and stakeholders use the findings to create change

Stakeholder engagement in dissemination and application of the research

  1. Note: Partners include both researchers and stakeholders. We synthesised the overarching strategies from 111 strategies extracted from the included reviews. The steps taken to synthesise these overarching strategies are described in OSF-Table V. To help organise these strategies, we grouped them into six subcategories. The strategies are numbered for feasibility reasons. The order of the strategies does not relate to the frequencies