Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education, a partnership between Kingston University and St George's, University of London, London, United Kingdom.
Health Economics Research Group, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, United Kingdom.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2018 Jul 11;16(1):60. doi: 10.1186/s12961-018-0337-6.
Closing the gap between research production and research use is a key challenge for the health research system. Stakeholder engagement is being increasingly promoted across the board by health research funding organisations, and indeed by many researchers themselves, as an important pathway to achieving impact. This opinion piece draws on a study of stakeholder engagement in research and a systematic literature search conducted as part of the study.
This paper provides a short conceptualisation of stakeholder engagement, followed by 'design principles' that we put forward based on a combination of existing literature and new empirical insights from our recently completed longitudinal study of stakeholder engagement. The design principles for stakeholder engagement are organised into three groups, namely organisational, values and practices. The organisational principles are to clarify the objectives of stakeholder engagement; embed stakeholder engagement in a framework or model of research use; identify the necessary resources for stakeholder engagement; put in place plans for organisational learning and rewarding of effective stakeholder engagement; and to recognise that some stakeholders have the potential to play a key role. The principles relating to values are to foster shared commitment to the values and objectives of stakeholder engagement in the project team; share understanding that stakeholder engagement is often about more than individuals; encourage individual stakeholders and their organisations to value engagement; recognise potential tension between productivity and inclusion; and to generate a shared commitment to sustained and continuous stakeholder engagement. Finally, in terms of practices, the principles suggest that it is important to plan stakeholder engagement activity as part of the research programme of work; build flexibility within the research process to accommodate engagement and the outcomes of engagement; consider how input from stakeholders can be gathered systematically to meet objectives; consider how input from stakeholders can be collated, analysed and used; and to recognise that identification and involvement of stakeholders is an iterative and ongoing process.
It is anticipated that the principles will be useful in planning stakeholder engagement activity within research programmes and in monitoring and evaluating stakeholder engagement. A next step will be to address the remaining gap in the stakeholder engagement literature concerned with how we assess the impact of stakeholder engagement on research use.
缩小研究产出与研究应用之间的差距是卫生研究系统面临的一个关键挑战。利益攸关方的参与正受到卫生研究资助机构乃至许多研究人员自身的广泛推动，因为这是实现影响力的一个重要途径。本文借鉴了一项关于利益攸关方参与研究的研究以及作为该研究一部分进行的系统文献检索。
本文首先对利益攸关方的参与进行了简要的概念化，然后根据我们最近完成的一项关于利益攸关方参与的纵向研究的既有文献和新的经验见解，提出了我们提出的“设计原则”。利益攸关方参与的设计原则分为三组，即组织、价值观和实践。组织原则包括明确利益攸关方参与的目标；将利益攸关方参与纳入研究应用框架或模型；确定利益攸关方参与所需的资源；为组织学习和奖励有效的利益攸关方参与制定计划；并认识到一些利益攸关方有可能发挥关键作用。与价值观相关的原则是促进项目团队对利益攸关方参与的价值观和目标的共同承诺；分享理解，即利益攸关方的参与通常不仅仅是个人的参与；鼓励个人利益攸关方及其组织重视参与；认识到生产力和包容性之间可能存在的紧张关系；并就持续和持续的利益攸关方参与达成共同承诺。最后，在实践方面，原则建议将利益攸关方参与活动作为研究工作计划的一部分进行规划；在研究过程中建立灵活性，以适应参与和参与的结果；考虑如何系统地收集利益攸关方的投入以实现目标；考虑如何整理、分析和利用利益攸关方的投入；并认识到利益攸关方的识别和参与是一个迭代和持续的过程。
预计这些原则将有助于规划研究计划中的利益攸关方参与活动，并监测和评估利益攸关方的参与。下一步将是解决利益攸关方参与文献中关于我们如何评估利益攸关方参与对研究应用的影响的剩余差距。
