Conceptual challenges in the translation of research into practice: it’s not just a matter of “communication”

This paper identifies key barriers to the translation of science into practice and policy and makes recommendations for addressing
them. It focuses on the challenges of translation within the field of tobacco control, but we argue that the insights are
widely generalisable. Actor-Network Theory is used to frame an analysis, supplemented by focussed discussions with international
tobacco control practitioners (service delivery and advocacy) and researchers. The central challenge to translation is that
researchers and practitioners have different “practical ontologies”. Researchers use findings from specific contexts to generalise
to universal principles, while practitioners try to use these generalisations to inform their work in what are typically a
somewhat different set of specific contexts. Neglecting the need to translate back from the general to the particular means
research syntheses are not framed to meet practitioners’ needs. Traditional knowledge broking roles need to be extended to
better align the needs of researchers and practitioners. This may be facilitated by more creative use of “social computing”
to enable real-time input into research syntheses from all interested parties, including input to the questions that research
addresses. To do this systematically requires that we construct “generalisation gradients” to help practitioners apply general
research conclusions to their particular situation and researchers to identify the relevance of their work. Disadvantaged
communities in particular need help, since there is typically less research directly applicable to their contexts; thus, they
need to generalise more.