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What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme

BACKGROUND: The national Public Health Practice Evaluation Scheme (PHPES) is a response-mode funded evaluation programme operated by the National Institute for Health Research School for Public Health Research (NIHR SPHR). The scheme enables public health professionals to work in partnership with SP...

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Autores principales: van der Graaf, Peter, Blank, Lindsay, Holding, Eleanor, Goyder, Elizabeth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7816377/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33472643
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12961-020-00671-0
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author van der Graaf, Peter
Blank, Lindsay
Holding, Eleanor
Goyder, Elizabeth
author_facet van der Graaf, Peter
Blank, Lindsay
Holding, Eleanor
Goyder, Elizabeth
author_sort van der Graaf, Peter
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The national Public Health Practice Evaluation Scheme (PHPES) is a response-mode funded evaluation programme operated by the National Institute for Health Research School for Public Health Research (NIHR SPHR). The scheme enables public health professionals to work in partnership with SPHR researchers to conduct rigorous evaluations of their interventions. Our evaluation reviewed the learning from the first five years of PHPES (2013–2017) and how this was used to implement a revised scheme within the School. METHODS: We conducted a rapid review of applications and reports from 81 PHPES projects and sampled eight projects (including unfunded) to interview one researcher and one practitioner involved in each sampled project (n = 16) in order to identify factors that influence success of applications and effective delivery and dissemination of evaluations. Findings from the review and interviews were tested in an online survey with practitioners (applicants), researchers (principal investigators [PIs]) and PHPES panel members (n = 19) to explore the relative importance of these factors. Findings from the survey were synthesised and discussed for implications at a national workshop with wider stakeholders, including public members (n = 20). RESULTS: Strengths: PHPES provides much needed resources for evaluation which often are not available locally, and produces useful evidence to understand where a programme is not delivering, which can be used to formatively develop interventions. Weaknesses: Objectives of PHPES were too narrowly focused on (cost-)effectiveness of interventions, while practitioners also valued implementation studies and process evaluations. Opportunities: PHPES provided opportunities for novel/promising but less developed ideas. More funded time to develop a protocol and ensure feasibility of the intervention prior to application could increase intervention delivery success rates. Threats: There can be tensions between researchers and practitioners, for example, on the need to show the 'success’ of the intervention, on the use of existing research evidence, and the importance of generalisability of findings and of generating peer-reviewed publications. CONCLUSIONS: The success of collaborative research projects between public health practitioners (PHP) and researchers can be improved by funders being mindful of tensions related to (1) the scope of collaborations, (2) local versus national impact, and (3) increasing inequalities in access to funding. Our study and comparisons with related funding schemes demonstrate how these tensions can be successfully resolved.
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spelling pubmed-78163772021-01-21 What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme van der Graaf, Peter Blank, Lindsay Holding, Eleanor Goyder, Elizabeth Health Res Policy Syst Research BACKGROUND: The national Public Health Practice Evaluation Scheme (PHPES) is a response-mode funded evaluation programme operated by the National Institute for Health Research School for Public Health Research (NIHR SPHR). The scheme enables public health professionals to work in partnership with SPHR researchers to conduct rigorous evaluations of their interventions. Our evaluation reviewed the learning from the first five years of PHPES (2013–2017) and how this was used to implement a revised scheme within the School. METHODS: We conducted a rapid review of applications and reports from 81 PHPES projects and sampled eight projects (including unfunded) to interview one researcher and one practitioner involved in each sampled project (n = 16) in order to identify factors that influence success of applications and effective delivery and dissemination of evaluations. Findings from the review and interviews were tested in an online survey with practitioners (applicants), researchers (principal investigators [PIs]) and PHPES panel members (n = 19) to explore the relative importance of these factors. Findings from the survey were synthesised and discussed for implications at a national workshop with wider stakeholders, including public members (n = 20). RESULTS: Strengths: PHPES provides much needed resources for evaluation which often are not available locally, and produces useful evidence to understand where a programme is not delivering, which can be used to formatively develop interventions. Weaknesses: Objectives of PHPES were too narrowly focused on (cost-)effectiveness of interventions, while practitioners also valued implementation studies and process evaluations. Opportunities: PHPES provided opportunities for novel/promising but less developed ideas. More funded time to develop a protocol and ensure feasibility of the intervention prior to application could increase intervention delivery success rates. Threats: There can be tensions between researchers and practitioners, for example, on the need to show the 'success’ of the intervention, on the use of existing research evidence, and the importance of generalisability of findings and of generating peer-reviewed publications. CONCLUSIONS: The success of collaborative research projects between public health practitioners (PHP) and researchers can be improved by funders being mindful of tensions related to (1) the scope of collaborations, (2) local versus national impact, and (3) increasing inequalities in access to funding. Our study and comparisons with related funding schemes demonstrate how these tensions can be successfully resolved. BioMed Central 2021-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7816377/ /pubmed/33472643 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12961-020-00671-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 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 in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
van der Graaf, Peter
Blank, Lindsay
Holding, Eleanor
Goyder, Elizabeth
What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme
title What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme
title_full What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme
title_fullStr What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme
title_full_unstemmed What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme
title_short What makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? A mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme
title_sort what makes a ‘successful’ collaborative research project between public health practitioners and academics? a mixed-methods review of funding applications submitted to a local intervention evaluation scheme
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7816377/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33472643
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12961-020-00671-0
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