Table 1 Research programme goals, objectives and outputs

Goal 1: advance understanding of the concept of IKT from the perspectives of knowledge users, researchers, funders and universities

Objectives:

 1. Describe researcher and knowledge user partnerships and the conditions under which these partnerships succeed or fail.

 2. Identify research funding mechanisms designed to support IKT and explore their effect on knowledge user engagement in research.

 3. Identify how university (dis)incentives influence researcher involvement in IKT.

Potential outputs: The knowledge generated will be immediately relevant to four groups: knowledge users and their organizations needing more relevant research, researchers wanting to do IKT, universities wanting to encourage IKT by faculty and funders wishing to make informed decisions about their policies and investments in support of IKT. The cumulative knowledge generated will fundamentally enhance our understanding of how and why researcher/knowledge user collaborations work and provide information on how to maximize the use of IKT as a strategy to address the underutilization of research.

Goal 2: assess the impacts of IKT

Objectives:

 1. Synthesize existing research on the benefits and challenges of IKT.

 2. Determine what ways and under what conditions IKT adds value to research findings for knowledge users.

 3. Generate new evidence on the outcomes and impacts of IKT.

 4. Meta-synthesize the findings from all our research programme projects to identify the benefits, risks and implications of doing IKT and the circumstances under which IKT is most appropriate and impactful.

Potential outputs: enhanced knowledge of the benefits, impacts, disadvantages and implications of IKT.

Goal 3: develop and adapt IKT theories and measurement tools

Objectives:

 1. Continue to evolve and test KT/implementation frameworks, particularly those incorporating IKT.

 2. Develop and validate measures to assess partnering processes and impacts of IKT

 3. Develop and test theory-based strategies/interventions designed to (a) support organizations’ meaningful engagement with researchers and use of research and (b) strengthen knowledge user organizational leadership for IKT.

Potential outputs: further refinement of existing frameworks of IKT. Measures to reliably and validly assess IKT partnerships and their impacts. Better quantification of these phenomena for research purposes. Better research partnerships when partners use the measures to diagnose the quality of their relationships and identify challenges/issues that they can address to prevent relationship breakdown.

Goal 4: convert evidence gained from the research programme into accessible resources and build IKT research capacity to accelerate capturing the benefits of health research in Canada and abroad

Objectives:

 1. Develop IKT training manuals, tools, sessions for researchers and knowledge users.

 2. Increase capacity for IKT among researchers and knowledge users.

 3. Engage funding agencies, universities, healthcare organizations to develop, implement and evaluate strategies to support researcher/knowledge user engagement.

Potential outputs: guidance documents/manuals and training sessions for both knowledge users and researchers on how to develop and nurture effective research partnerships. Researchers skilled in IKT (10–14 new HQP, > 100 trainees). Knowledge users at multiple levels (executives, managers, policy makers, clinicians) capable of participating in and using research. Effective strategies to promote IKT. A strengthened research community of practice on IKT. Academic incentives and funder policies better aligned to support IKT.