Abstract
BackgroundDespite considerable attention currently being given to facilitating the use of research results in public health practice, several concerns remain, resulting in the so-called know-do gap. This article aims to identify the key tensions causing the know-do gap from a broad perspective by using a systemic approach and considering the public health sector as an innovation system.MethodsAn exploratory qualitative design including in-depth semi-structured interviews was used, with 33 interviewees from different actor categories in the Dutch public health innovation system. The analyses employed an innovation system matrix to highlight the principal tensions causing the know-do gap.ResultsSeven key tensions were identified, including: research priorities determined by powerful players; no consensus about criteria for knowledge quality; different perceptions about the knowledge broker role; competition engendering fragmentation; thematic funding engendering fragmentation; predominance of passive knowledge sharing; and lack of capacity among users to use and influence research.ConclusionsThe identified tensions indicate that bridging the know-do gap requires much more than linking research to practice or translating knowledge. An innovation system perspective is crucial in providing information on the total picture of knowledge exchange within the Dutch public health sector. Such a system includes broader stakeholder involvement as well as the creation of social, economic, and contextual conditions (achieving shared visions, building networks, institutional change, removing financial and infrastructural barriers), as these create conducive factors at several system levels and induce knowledge co-creation and innovation.
Highlights
Despite considerable attention currently being given to facilitating the use of research results in public health practice, several concerns remain, resulting in the so-called know-do gap
Actor roles: who does what in the Dutch public health innovation system? The roles of knowledge producers, knowledge users, intermediaries, and precondition establishers all appeared to
The location within the matrix of the identified tensions is defined by the system condition category to which the tension belongs and the domain of actor roles that cause and/or potentially resolve the tension exist within the public health innovation system, it appeared that actors rarely had one single role
Summary
Despite considerable attention currently being given to facilitating the use of research results in public health practice, several concerns remain, resulting in the so-called know-do gap. A systemic and co-evolutionary view on innovation implies that a change in one part of a system (or sector) may have an impact - sometimes unintended - on another part of the system [15, 21] Such views on innovation as a coevolutionary process that depends on coordinated systemic interactions among networks of multiple actors are recognised in the innovation systems literature [12,13,14, 16]. This holistic perspective on multiactor collaboration for innovation recognises the key importance of the exchange of different types of knowledge of different actors in systems, related in this context to the multiple changes in public health systems that are needed for innovation
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