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Table 3 IKT initiation themes and associated activities

From: Initiation is recognized as a fundamental early phase of integrated knowledge translation (IKT): qualitative interviews with researchers and research users in IKT partnerships

Theme

Activities

Newly identifying and securing partners is an intensive process

• Identify stakeholders

• Conduct research together as an extension of the partnership

• Contact individuals with dual role of researcher and research user

• Convince and get partner buy-in on research project

• Form partnership early and ensure collaboration lasts throughout

Processes and activities take place over a protracted period through multiple interactions

• Clarify roles, responsibilities, scope of project, research question by meetings, committees, agreements

• Align idea with research user organization’s goals; educate each other on how to align goals

• Provide opportunities for communication and input

Identifying and engaging committed partners is reliant on funding

People and Roles:

• Build a network well in advance and have organizational capacity to maintain network

• Use research project as incentive for research users to stay up to date and researcher to obtain tenure

• Build and maintain a relationship with connectors, boundary spanners, or mentors

• Leadership role

• Early partnership formation and collaboration from the outset of a research initiative

Building commitment:

• Shared goals amongst the researchers and the research users themselves, or their organizations

• Shared interest, synergy and passion for the subject matter

• Trust and commitment achieved by being responsive, respectful of time, planning face-to-face meetings and maintaining credibility

• Time to commit to partnership and creating time-saving methods for busy research users to take part in projects

• Build a sense of ownership by making researcher users feel valued, respected and have a sense of ownership over research outputs

• Develop a shared language and culture

Funding

• Enable initiation by supporting identification of partners

• Enable travel for face-to-face meetings at beginning of partnerships

• Establish commitment and launch planning activities

Partnership building challenged by maintaining continuity and enthusiasm

• Maintaining continuity during IKT initiation due to high turnover of individuals

• Over-reliance on one person representing a research user group

• Difficult to maintain enthusiasm throughout the first few meetings during the initiation phase

• Engagement was further compromised by competing priorities among research users

• The amount and extent of administrative paperwork at the beginning of partnerships also influenced enthusiasm

• Personality of the researcher or research

• Lack of understanding of the research cycle or research culture

• Misaligned goals, roles and expectations.

• Geographical distance between the partners

Partner matching forum, toolkit and funding needed to foster IKT initiation

• A shared forum or repository where researchers could identify potential researcher user partners who shared matching interests and goals

• An IKT initiation toolkit, guide or checklist described as ‘how to start IKT partnership information’

• Funding for non-research IKT initiation activities such as travel and meetings