When Coproduction Is Unproductive; Comment on “Experience of Health Leadership in Partnering with University-Based Researchers in Canada: A Call to ‘Re-Imagine’ Research”

Document Type : Commentary

Author

Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Abstract

Bowen et al offer a sobering look at the reality of research partnerships from the decision-maker perspective. Health leaders who had actively engaged in such partnerships continued to describe research as irrelevant and unhelpful – just the problem that partnered research was intended to solve. This commentary further examines the many barriers that impede researchers from meeting decision-makers’ knowledge needs, and decision-makers from using knowledge that they have coproduced. It argues that not all barriers can or should be dismantled: some are legitimate and beneficial; some are harmful but deeply entrenched; some arise unpredictably. This being the case, it seems unrealistic to expect either existing or emerging strategies to create a macro-context devoid of barriers to the fruitful coproduction of knowledge. However, it may be possible to identify and support micro-contexts (configurations of participants, settings, and project characteristics) in which partnered research is most likely to achieve its aims.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

  1. Bowen S, Botting I, Graham ID, et al. Experience of health leadership in partnering with university-based researchers in Canada - a call to "re-imagine" research. Int J Health Policy Manag. 2019;8(12):684-699. doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2019.66
  2. Van De Ven AH, Johnson PE. Knowledge for theory and practice. Acad Manage Rev. 2006;31(4):802-821. doi:10.2307/20159252
  3. Danermark B, Ekström M, Jakobsen L, Karlsson JC. Explaining Society: Critical Realism in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge; 2002.
  4. Oliver K, Kothari A, Mays N. The dark side of coproduction: do the costs outweigh the benefits for health research? Health Res Policy Syst. 2019;17(1):33. doi:10.1186/s12961-019-0432-3
  5. Lomas J, Culyer T, McCutcheon C, McAuley L, Law S. Conceptualizing and Combining Evidence for Health System Guidance. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Health Services Research Foundation; 2005.
  6. Kreindler SA. Planning without action and action without planning? Examining a regional health system's efforts to improve patient flow, 1998-2013. Int J Health Plann Manage. 2018;33(1):e333-e343. doi:10.1002/hpm.2481
  7. Lane PJ, Koka BR, Pathak S. The reification of absorptive capacity: a critical review and rejuvenation of the construct. Acad Manage Rev. 2006;31(4):833-863. doi:10.2307/20159255
  8. Kreindler SA. Advancing the evaluation of integrated knowledge translation. Health Res Policy Syst. 2018;16(1):104. doi:10.1186/s12961-018-0383-0
  9. Weiss CH. Have we learned anything new about the use of evaluation? Am J Eval. 1998;19(1):21-33. doi:10.1016/S1098-2140(99)80178-7
  10. Gagliardi AR, Berta W, Kothari A, Boyko J, Urquhart R. Integrated knowledge translation (IKT) in health care: a scoping review. Implement Sci. 2016;11:38. doi:10.1186/s13012-016-0399-1
International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Volume 9, Issue 9
September 2020
Pages 406-408

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 02 November 2019
  • Revise Date: 12 December 2019
  • Accept Date: 12 December 2019
  • First Publish Date: 01 September 2020

Share

How to cite

Statistics