Logic models – Integration and Implementation Insights

Combining and adapting frameworks for research implementation

September 28, 2021September 28, 2021

By Kirsty Jones and Sara Bice

authors_kirsty-jones_sara-bice — 1. Kirsty Jones (biography)
2. Sara Bice (biography)

How can combining frameworks help plan a research implementation process? What specific contributions can different frameworks make?

In our research with industry, we found combining three frameworks to be an effective way to get handles on a complex implementation landscape and to design the necessary steps to systematically work our way through it. The frameworks we found useful were: a logic model, a pathway to impact and the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, which we adapted to our context.

We provide four figures to show how we used each framework and briefly describe the benefits we derived from each of them. Although fully understanding the detail in the figures requires familiarity with the specifics of our research, we trust the figures provide insight into how each framework was used.

Theory of Change in a nutshell

September 23, 2021August 24, 2021

By Heléne Clark

author_helene-clark — Heléne Clark (biography)

How can you plan to make change happen or evaluate the effectiveness of actions you took? How can you link desired long-term goals with all the conditions that must be in place? How can you map out a step-by-step pathway that highlights your assumptions and expectations?

Theory of Change (ToC) is a graphic and narrative explanation of how and why a change process is expected to happen in a particular context.

At its heart, Theory of Change spells out initiative or program logic. It defines long-term goals and then maps backward to identify changes thought to be necessary to the goal that need to happen earlier (preconditions).

Theory of Change purports to explain change process in diagrammatically modeling all the causal linkages in an initiative, ie., its shorter-term, intermediate, and longer-term outcomes.

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.