Lost in knowledge translation

One of the tasks of the new team in which I'm now involved in my new job, is to accelerate knowledge from research into use. The terms they use for this is knowledge translation and transfer. In good tradition of government where there is an acronym for everything, it is called KTT. Knowledge transfer is a concept I'm familiar with, knowledge translation is something I have a vague perception of what it means, but not more than that. To better understand the topic, I looked in some sources.

Knowledge translation is mostly used in the field of medicine or health care research, at least the literature and institutes I found are from that area. CIHR (Canadian Insitute of Health Research)has a lot of information on knowledge translation.  In a CIHR casebook, “Knowledge to Action: A Knowledge Translation Casebook” 10 (medical) cases are described.  In the foreword of the casebook, Ian Graham writes: “Knowledge translation is all about turning research into action. It is about closing the gap between knowing and doing. It’s about accelerating the capture and practical application of the knowledge uncovered by research”. This was to me a clear and simple explanation. 

In an interesting paper (again from the health sciences), Jacobson et al (2003) describe a framework for knowledge translation. They list questions a researcher should try to answer before sending out the message to users, to find out how good they know the user group, the power structures around user groups and issues from the user group to which the research relates.

A few more thoughts about the topic:

Translation continuum

 

 

Peer researcher – researcher (another area) – policy maker (gov. org.) – industry – general public

Little translation needed                                           –                                              Much translation needed

 

 

Translation of research outcomes into:

-          products

-          procedures

-          implications

-          behavioural change

-          attitude change

Literature:

Nora Jacobson, Dale Butterill, Paula Goering (2003). Development of a famework for knowledge translation: Understanding user context. In: Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, Vol 8, No 2, 94-99.

Comments

[Carla Verwijs]

Another interesting link on this topic: http://www.ncddr.org/kt/products/focus/focus10/