Bev Holmes – Integration and Implementation Insights

Maximizing use of research evidence – how can funders help?

September 23, 2021September 4, 2018

By Bev Holmes

What is the role of funders in maximizing the use of research evidence?

The Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research is actively considering this question. An important influence on the Foundation’s thinking is the 2014 Lancet special issue Research: Increasing Value, Reducing Waste, which explores roles for funders, regulators, journals, academic institutions and researchers. Funders have a part to play in each of the five recommendations made in the special issue and these are reviewed first. Also examined is an additional area where funders have a role, namely creating the conditions for effective knowledge translation.

Co-producing research: Why we need to say what we mean, mean what we say, and learn as we go

November 30, 2022September 12, 2017

By Bev J. Holmes

The co-production or co-creation of research is not new – action based research traditions can lay claim to a long history, but are those of us involved in co-production doing enough to understand what it means?

In their work on public involvement, Antoine Boivin and colleagues (2014) note there is such widespread support for the rhetoric of co-production that we may dismiss (I would add not even acknowledge) the tensions that arise when professionals and lay people work together. Co-production in health research is similar. We need to work harder to say what we mean, mean what we say, and learn as we go.

Six actions to mobilise knowledge in complex systems

December 27, 2021January 31, 2017

By Bev J. Holmes and Allan Best

bev-holmes_original — Bev J. Holmes (biography)

What are the practical implications of mobilising knowledge in complex systems? How can the rules, regulations, incentives and long-entrenched power structures of a system be changed so that knowledge mobilisation is maximized?

We propose six interdependent actions, briefly described below, undertaken at two levels, by those who: (1) are managing specific knowledge mobilization initiatives (initiative managers), and (2) are in a position to make the environment more receptive to change (key influencers). These people may not necessarily be involved in specific initiatives.