Gee, M. and Cooke, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-9629-0545 (2018) How do NHS organisations plan research capacity development? Strategies, strengths, and opportunities for improvement. BMC Health Services Research, 18 (1). 198. ISSN 1472-6963
Abstract
Research that is integral into a ‘learning healthcare system’ can promote cost effective services and knowledge creation. As such, research is defined as a ‘core function’ in UK health service organisations, and is often planned through research and development (R&D) strategies that aim to promote research activity and research capacity development (RCD).
The discussion focuses around the content of ten R&D strategies for healthcare organisations in England and Scotland, with respect to RCD. These organisations were engaged with a research interest network called ACORN (Addressing Organisational Capacity to do Research Network) that included two Scottish Health Boards, four community and mental health trusts, two provincial district hospitals, and two teaching hospitals.
We undertook a thematic documentary analysis of the R&D strategies which identified 11 ‘core activities’ of RCD. The potential for building research capacity in these ‘core activities’ was established by reviewing them through the lens of a RCD framework.
Core activities aimed to ‘hard wire’ RCD into health organisations. They demonstrated a complex interplay between developing a strong internal organisational infrastructure, and supporting individual career planning and skills development, in turn enabled by organisational processes. They also included activities to build stronger inter-organisational relationships and networks. Practitioner, manager and patient involvement was a cross cutting theme. The potential to demonstrate progress was included in plans through monitoring activity across all RCD principles. Strategies were primarily aimed at research production rather than research use. Developing ‘actionable dissemination’ was poorly addressed in the strategies, and represents an area for improvement.
We describe strengths of RCD planning activities, and opportunities for improvement. We explore how national policy and research funders can influence health systems’ engagement in research.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s). 2018. Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
Keywords: | Research capacity development; Organisational infrastructure; Research funding; Health systems research |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 29 May 2020 10:57 |
Last Modified: | 29 May 2020 11:02 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/s12913-018-2992-2 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:161187 |