Academic perspectives and experiences of knowledge translation: a qualitative study of public health researchers

Abstract

This study explores the views and experiences of knowledge translation of 14 Australian public health academics. Capacity to engage in knowledge translation is influenced by factors within the academic context and the interaction of the academic and policy environments. Early and mid-career researchers reported a different set of experiences and pressures to senior researchers. Barriers to knowledge translation reported are largely consistent with prior research. However, this study also emphasised the importance of academic professional identity in research-policy translation. Strategies to enhance research uptake should both address structural barriers and seek to encourage a culture of engagement with public policy.

Researchers’ perspective of real-world impact from UK public health research: A qualitative study

“…“policy-makers identify and prioritise particular problems that then become the focus of research” , [28 p. 28]. Similar to [ 16 ], public health researchers in this study had a strong awareness of professional identity around researcher role and skill-set, and how they viewed their contribution to society. By contrast, we found no evidence that they viewed undertaking KMb activities as a competitive advantage to their peers.…”

“…Researchers recognised the need to collaborate and/or engage to ensure that the research is positioned within the right context. However, in line with [ 16 ], a lack of capacity (skills and time) to do so was a barrier to effective KMb (and therefore impact). Public health researchers need to engage with a broad range of stakeholders who often have different needs, priorities and entrenched practices.…”

“…Context has been recently highlighted as an area that should receive greater consideration to aid understanding of population health interventions [ 27 , 28 ]. The importance of context has been reiterated by public health researchers in Australia [ 16 ] and UK [ 18 , 27 ]. Our findings mirror this complexity when researchers discuss the need to navigate context and to ensure their research is relevant.…”

“…For instance, it has been proposed that the assessment of research impact (such as the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK [ 13 ]) often centralises the role of the academic and overlooks the role of evidence-users [ 7 ]. However, the evidence-user perspective is often centralised in studies looking at KMb [ 14 – 16 ] specifically because evidence-users are responsible for implementing research findings into practice. Therefore, there appears to be an unbalanced commitment between those who are responsible for making evidence-informed decisions within the health care system (i.e., policy-makers, practitioners, commissioners) and those (i.e.…”

“…Their findings suggested that the underpinning values of the researcher played a role in what they considered most important for research impact/ KMb. In addition, with regards to KMb, Australian public health academics considered how they interact with (and value) policy makers and the skills they need to do this, the constraints of their own research environment (context), and the professional identity of the researcher [ 16 ]. For curiosity-driven researchers, undertaking quality research and ensuring that the research was published in high impact journals was highly valued.…”