Letters
Health services administration
Volume 184 - Issue 5

What exactly is society getting for its research dollars?

Authors:  Roslyn G Poulos and Anthony B Zwi

Med J Aust 2006; 184 (5): 252-253. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2006.tb00220.x
Published online: 6 March 2006
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Roslyn G Poulos,* Anthony B Zwi†

* Lecturer, † Professor and Head, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052. r.poulosATunsw.edu.au

To the Editor: We support the suggestion in the recent editorial on modernising the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)1 that the Council assess the outputs and value of sponsored research by going beyond considering primarily published articles and granted patents. More attention to mechanisms that improve the translation of research into policy and practice is required.

As part of an NHMRC Capacity Building Grant in Population Health in Injury, Trauma and Rehabilitation, we have interviewed a number of Australian injury researchers to identify the facilitators of, and barriers to, enhancing the interface of research with policy and practice. Researchers readily reported peer-reviewed journals and conference presentations as measurable indicators of research success, but found policy and practice outcomes more difficult to identify. This may be because research utilisation often occurs through a slow and indirect process of “enlightenment”;2 however, it may also reflect minimal opportunities available, or taken, to disseminate research directly to policy makers and practitioners, and thereby encourage uptake.

Some researchers perceived that funding bodies, such as the NHMRC, do not explicitly fund the person-time necessary for researchers to work with relevant stakeholders to disseminate their research. Without such funding, researchers must move onto the next funded project, without the opportunity to “value-add” to their research by facilitating uptake. Further, there may be little incentive from academia to develop relationships with policy makers, industry or practitioners.3 Such interactions should be considered as “part of the ‘real’ work of research”4 and should attract funding.

The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation has identified the job of a knowledge broker as someone “to bring people — researchers, decision makers, practitioners and policy makers — together and build relationships among them that make knowledge transfer more effective” and has recommended that the task of brokering be acknowledged and rewarded.5 The Sax Institute in New South Wales is exploring a similar concept.

In considering new approaches to assessing sponsored research, consideration should be given to ensuring the legitimate funding of research dissemination (however, and by whom, that is to be undertaken), and appropriate, objective measurements that reflect dissemination, with the potential to improve uptake. Those familiar with program evaluation will recognise the importance of measuring effective dissemination as a prerequisite to outcome evaluation, and as being highly relevant to the assessment of research output and influence.

Authors

  • Roslyn G Poulos1
  • Anthony B Zwi1
  • 1. School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052.

Correspondence: r.poulos@unsw.edu.au

References

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