Knowledge Translation for road safety innovation

On January 25th 2023, at the 5th SAFE-UP General Assembly, Dr. Marilee Nugent of UNIFI led a WP6 workshop on Knowledge Translation for Road Safety Innovation with special guest speaker Dr. Tamika Heiden, the principal and founder of Research Impact Academy, Australia.

In a virtual interview with Tamika, we asked the question, “How can researchers proactively enhance the impact of their research?” Tamika described how Knowledge Translation (KT) is a strategy for impact planning. Processes and principles are applied throughout the research process to plan for and capture impact. The processes are typically social and involve engaging and interacting with users of research to ensure outcomes are translated into useable and relevant formats, rather than just publishing in journals and hoping the findings are read and used.

Tamika introduced the key characteristics of KT proposed by Sudsawad (2007): 

• Includes all steps between the creation of new knowledge and its application

• Needs multi-directional communications

• Is an interactive process

• Requires ongoing collaborations among relevant parties

• Includes multiple activities

• Involves diverse knowledge-user groups

• Is user- and context-specific

• Is impact-oriented

In other words, KT is PEOPLE-ORIENTED. This echoes the current wisdom that innovation is a social process (or requires many social processes). 

Tamika provided insights into the differences and relationship between KT and Impact. She further clarified what impact is, where it happens and when. Typically, real impact takes a long time to manifest, but we can look at ways to capture and measure impact at different stages in the life of a research project. Engaging with research users throughout a research program or project can help ensure we track and capture a wide variety of potential impacts, including unintended ones. It is often more appropriate to describe how outcomes have contributed to specific impacts, since measuring impact is problematic and may result from a variety of factors.

The relevant skills, knowledge and practices required for knowledge translation to strengthen the pathway from research to impact are not typically a part of researchers' training. Despite this, a growing number of funders require knowledge translation and impact planning as part of grant proposals, to ensure the ethical use of public funds and to avoid research waste. 

Marilee gave a summary of how some of the principles of KT are being applied in WP6 to develop informational and educational products for diverse audiences based on SAFE-UP’s new evidence on traffic safety-critical scenarios and the innovative technologies intended to mitigate them. These included applying KT planning tools adaptable to any research domain, outreach and engagement with stakeholders such as motorcycling, cycling and walking advocacy groups to include their voices and concerns in results interpretation and use, and synthesis of different information sources to ensure user-centred, up-to-date messaging and accessibility of products. 

In the second hour, the attendees formed working groups and Tamika presented the RIA Impact Logic Model, leading the partners in an impact mapping activity for selected project outcomes. The partners then shared their impact maps with the group and Tamika provided ideas and feedback, especially for additional target audiences outside the usual academic dissemination streams.

For more information on Tamika and RIA, check out the website at researchimpactacademy.com or find her on social media platforms.

In the final stages of the project, CERTH and UNIFI will continue WP6 activities by expanding the Safety Partner Network to share our new road safety education strategies, collect and integrate feedback, and then begin wider, targeted dissemination to diverse user groups. The obvious target audiences for these items are the general public and specifically pre- and post-car and motorcycle licensees. However, as synthesises of diverse data types and current road safety paradigms, the materials and eLearning modules represent an important and accessible source of information for educators, driving schools, safety councils, road management experts, cities, and decision-makers.

• Final versions of informational and educational materials developed in the project will be available on the SAFE-UP website. 

• COMING SOON: a compendium of KT and impact planning tools, resources, frameworks, best practice examples and literature references for researchers wishing to learn more, improve their reach and enhance research impact!

Want to get in touch with the SAFE-UP team? Email us at: contact@safe-up.eu