How to make research happen: working with staff.

Implementing a research project in a clinical nursing unit requires the researcher to gain cooperation and support from administration, physicians, and the nursing staff. In this article the site coordinators from the Transition of the Preterm Infant to an Open Crib research-utilization project share their strategies for generating support, energizing the staff nurses, assuring compliance with the study, resolving problems, and bringing the project to closure. Many of the strategies used can be applied to other research projects by nurse researchers interested in using clinical nursing units as research sites.