The NIHR ARC EoE runs an Implementation Fellowship featuring a series of open seminars in which speakers discuss an aspect of research implementation in which they are internationally preeminent.
2022 Seminar Series
Mindlines, Communities of Practice and the Craft of Research Implementation
by Professors John Gabbay and Andrée le May
2021 Seminar Series
Seminar 1: Professor Ian Graham - All you ever wanted to know about the Knowledge to Action Framework
3rd June 2021, 12:30 to 13:30
This presentation reviewed the origins of the Knowledge to Action Cycle, explained its components and described how it has been used. A case study was presented to illustrate how the framework can be used in the real world to plan implementation, evaluation and sustaining of evidence-informed practice
Professor Ian Graham, Senior Scientist, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Read more here
Seminar 2: Dr Joe Langley - Design Practice & Implementation
1st July 2021, 12:30 to 13:30
Design, Co-Design and Design Thinking are now ubiquitous terms, all widely used beyond the discipline of Design. Some tools, methods and mindsets of Designers have been adopted along the way. The practices of Designers have been left behind.
In this seminar, Dr Joe Langley talked about the practices of Designers, the impact they have on co-design, and the potential contribution they hold for implementing research evidence.
Through case studies, we looked at Design and Co-Design from a Designers’ perspective, illustrating how Design practices are used to explore problems, develop solutions and communicate across boundaries, engaging with people mentally, physically and emotionally – which is essential to influencing behaviour.
Dr Joe Langley Principal Research Fellow – Design Research Lab4Living, Sheffield Hallam University. Read more here
Seminar 3: Professor Jo Rycroft-Malone - Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services: The life and times of the PARIHS framework
9th September 2021, 12:30 to 13:30
Professor Jo Rycroft-Malone, Dean of the Faculty of Health and Medicine, University of Lancaster. Read more here
The Promoting Action on Research Implementation of Health Services (PARIHS) framework explains the successful implementation of evidence (in its broadest sense) as a function of the nature of that evidence, the context in which evidence is intended for use, and the approach to facilitation. In this discussion, I’ll unpack the premise, content and use of the framework – including a reflection on how frameworks such as PARIHS do and do not get used in implementation research.
2020 Seminar Series
Seminar 1: Annette Boaz 5th March 2020, The role of context in implementing research evidence
This session made a case for the importance of context in implementing research evidence. It argued that research evidence often ‘lands’ in practice settings in a state of bewilderment. Drawing on recent examples of implementing research evidence, it highlighted the wide range of contextual factors that can trip up even the best-laid implementation plans. In particular, it highlighted the role of theory in generating deeper insights into contextual factors. Finally, it considered how research developed in local contexts can sometimes be better equipped to generate research evidence that meet local needs.
Seminar 2: Peter Beresford 9th April 2020, Engaging people and communities in the implementation
The aim of this session was to explore how inclusive involvement, which we often think about in terms of planning, research and evaluation can also extend to the key stage of implementation in provision and practice. It drew on experience working to achieve this in both user-led and collaborative schemes and initiatives and hopefully helped us better understand both drivers and blockers and helped participants address the issue in their own particular work.
Seminar 3: Lesley Wye 7th May 2020, Implementation from the perspective of a knowledge mobilisation fellow
So what do I do? Perspectives of a knowledge mobiliser
We all want our research to make a difference. But how does that happen? Who needs to be involved? What are the first steps? What helps and what makes it harder? In this talk, NIHR Knowledge Mobilisation Research Fellow Dr Lesley Wye drew on 20+ years of experience of making change happen (and sometimes studying it!) within various sectors including healthcare, commissioning, charities and even the NIHR itself.
Seminar 4: Dr Nick Andrews 4th June 2020 Introducing the DEEP approach to knowledge mobilisation
It is important to understand that DEEP is an approach to knowledge mobilisation not a method or intervention. It is as much about ways of being as it is about ways of doing and was developed through a participatory action research project funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Health and Care Research Wales from 2014 to 2016. It has since been applied across a range of local authorities, social care and community organisations in Wales and Scotland.
Seminar 5: Glenn Robert 7th July 2020, Implementation Seminar: Experience-based co-design – its role in implementing research
This seminar critically explored the current trend towards more participatory methods for implementing change within (and outside) healthcare organisations, and the resulting opportunities and challenges that arise for applied (and not so applied) researchers. By revisiting the radical origins of methods such as Experience-based Co-design, the talk explored the potential for combining both creativity and rigour in implementing research findings to improve the delivery and organisation of healthcare services
Seminar 6: Carl May 6th August 2020, The practical implications of Normalisation Process Theory for the implementation of research
Implementation research looks for answers to some of the most difficult problems that we face: how to get new and improved evidence-based ways of delivering and organising healthcare into practice, and how to keep them there. At the same time, implementation researchers have worked to develop frameworks that did help us understand, organise and evaluate the processes of implementing innovations and evidence. Normalization Process Theory (NPT) is an example of such a framework: there are now around 400 protocols, reviews and empirical studies that have applied NPT, not just in healthcare research but in areas as diverse as agriculture, education, criminal justice, and supply chain logistics. This seminar provided participants with an introduction to NPT, and an understanding of how to apply it to practical problems in implementation. In particular, it was oriented to action. NPT focuses on the things that people do, rather than their attitudes or intentions, and it emphasises the collaborative nature of implementation work.
Seminar 7: Kate Beckett 10th September 2020, Arts-based knowledge mobilisation
With the help of an EPPIC film (all was explained!), Kate Beckett explored Arts-Based Knowledge Translation strategies’ (ABKTs e.g. participatory drama) potential to catalyse change by stimulating debate and knowledge sharing among key healthcare stakeholders. ABKT’s simultaneously evoke rational and emotional processing. They provide a social milieu for diverse evidence to be collectively interrogated and new ideas actively tested. The transformative potential of such productive interaction was also explored with reference to the ‘Social Impact Framework’.
Seminar 8: Dr Paul Wilson 1st October 2020, The place of implementation science in practical research implementation
Challenges in getting evidence into practice in health systems have long been recognised, but have become a key concern of health systems generally. Grounded in several disciplines, implementation science is the study of strategies to promote the uptake of evidence-based interventions into healthcare practice and policy. An ever-growing body of evidence on uptake and adoption now exists, but many important messages that can inform implementation efforts in practice remain buried in the academic literature. This presentation considered the challenge of not just getting evidence into practice but also implementation science into practice.
Seminar 9: Professor Trish Greenhalgh 29th October 2020, Covid-19 and the unhinging of research implementation: all change, please.
Covid-19 has changed science – perhaps forever. This has huge implications for getting research into practice. The pandemic and its aftershocks have shaken the traditional pillars supporting dispassionate inquiry, academic reporting, dissemination and implementation. How to buttress these crumbling pillars? This lecture considered four approaches that can be taken by individual academics: reflexivity (heightening awareness of one’s identity, values and ethics as a scientist), painful engagement (understanding the damaging interaction between science, ideology and politics, and highlighting potential avenues for damage limitation), epistemological labour (defending the credibility of our science by defending our assumptions – and challenging competing assumptions – about the nature of reality and how that reality might be known), and deconstruction (transcending the distortions produced by others’ language by recognising and actively seeking to circumvent the constraints of discourses and linguistic conventions). This all changes how researchers influence policy and practice.