Template for AIHS Grant Applications

Knowledge Translation Plan Template for AIHS Grant Applications

This template is provided for applicants of AIHS grant applications to help articulate their plans for knowledge translation (KT). Prompting questions are provided to help stimulate your thinking but the plan should not be limited by the questions in any way. It is expected that KT may be both integrated throughout the research process and after results are available. The KT plan should be appropriate and feasible for the research being undertaken. For example, if a grant program emphasizes collaboration with end users of research, the anticipated involvement of end users should be a key feature in the plan.

1. Objective(s)

Objectives are what you hope the impact of your research will be. KT objectives should be clear, concise, measureable and appropriate to the expected research results.

Questions for the team to consider:

 What do you want to accomplish? What do you want people to do with the research results?  What will the impact be if you succeed? Will you be adding to a body of knowledge that will inform continuing research? Will you raise awareness within a specific audience? Change practice or service delivery? Inform policy decisions? Market a new medical device?

KT objectives for this project: #1

2. Key Audiences

Key audiences are those individuals and groups who are essential to you reaching your objectives.

Questions to consider:

 Who are the audiences, specifically that you need to engage to realize your KT objectives (above)?  What do you know about these audiences and how they make decisions?  What is their knowledge base and are there gaps between what they know and what they do?  What are the barriers and facilitators to KT with these audiences?

Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions March 13, 2012 Key audiences for this project:

3. Strategies and Tactics

This section of the plan will outline how you plan to reach and influence your key audiences. Strategies are the broader initiatives and tactics are the specifics within those.

 How will you engage your key audiences? Will you integrate them into the project or engage them after the project is complete? If integrated, how will you do that – developing the research question together, vetting early results, active player in disseminating/transferring results, business development?  How will you place your results in context of other research in this subject area?  What tools or methods will you use to involve or engage your audiences? Targeted face-to- face presentations, knowledge brokers, use of opinion leaders, chart audit and feedback, focus groups, mass media, conference presentation, business plan, etc?  Who will do the KT work and how much will that cost?  Are your strategies and tactics reasonable, appropriate and feasible for the research results you hope to generate?  What are the key messages from your results? Why are the results relevant to the audiences? What do you want the audiences to do with the results you are presenting?  Have you made progress already in your KT strategies? These should be noted.

Proposed strategies and tactics (including responsibility, timing, budget):

4. Evaluation

The evaluation will address how you intend to measure uptake and impact and will be matched against your stated objectives.

 Do you expect to have an impact in any of the following and what do you think that impact will be:  advancing knowledge in your field of study or in the field of KT;  capacity building including building the capacity of end users to use research;  informing decision making;  improving health, the economy or society.  What metrics will you use to measure your impact?  How will you measure sustained knowledge use?

Proposed evaluation plan:

Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions March 13, 2012