The latest CaHRU/LIH Implementation Science and Research Methods seminar was given on December 6th 2016 by Professor Chris Bridle, Director of the Lincoln Institute for Health on the topic of “Accumulative evidence synthesis: Fast track through the implementation pipeline”. Before taking up his current post in January 2015, Chris was Professor of Human Behavioural Science and Director of Research at Aberystwyth University (2012-14) and prior to this Associate Professor (Reader) of Behavioural Interventions (2008-12) in the Clinical Trials Unit at Warwick Medical School.

The seminar focussed on the bottleneck of translating research findings and on an innovative idea for how to deal with this. After discussing some commonly encountered issues affecting the implementation process, from forming an initial research idea to translation of study findings, Chris introduced to attendees a new and improved method for progressing through the pipeline in a more time and cost-efficient manner involving adding results of small scale trials to the meta-analysis of existing studies. He then considered some key pre-conditions, before asking attendees to discuss potential issues relating to the adoption of his proposed method by researchers, funders and healthcare commissioners.

The seminar and Chris’ proposed method were very well-received and were the starting point for many thought-provoking discussions on the advantages, potential disadvantages, and prerequisites for such an approach. January’s Improvement Science and Research Methods seminar will be presented by Paul Leighton, Deputy Director at NIHR Research Design Service for the East Midlands, on January 21st 2017. His topic will be “The Delphi technique and other methods of consensus development in applied health settings”.

By Despina Laparidou