Effective links

Leading on from JournalWatch: Collaborative Partnerships in Research the Effective Links Project was planned and successfully conducted as a collaborative research project between PHC RIS and the Australian Divisions of General Practice (now known as the Australian General Practice Network).

The project aimed to strengthen links between Divisions of General Practice and the university sector by exploring the experiences and perceptions of a sample of participants from Divisions and universities who were involved in or had an interest in research and evaluation activity. Ethics approval for the project was gained from the Flinders University Social and Behavioural Science Ethics Committee. A purposive technique combined with a public call for expressions of interest were used to identify a range of suitable participants. Data were collected through semi-structured telephone interviews and analysed using content analysis and a grounded conceptualisation process that was informed by the literature, involved all members of the research team and relied on repeated abstraction and interpretation.

Twenty-one participants from Divisions and universities took part in the study - 12 were from Divisions and nine were from universities. In summary the results showed that:

• effective links between Divisions and universities were the result of a combination of structural factors (opportunity) and process attributes (fair relationships);
• four types of links resulted from interactions between these factors and attributes - effective links, uncertain links, underdeveloped links and ineffective links;
• there were a number of key issues to be addressed around putting effective links between Divisions and universities into practice;
• relationships were at the heart of effective links and there was an association between the quality of the relationship and the probability of engaging in ongoing interactions that had implications for sustainability of links and for embedding a research and evaluation culture in Divisions; and
• further research is required to understand links between Divisions and university PHC RED Research Capacity Building Initiatives.

The findings of this project have been widely disseminated. As well as the research report with actionable messages and the two page summary (published in June), the findings of this project were progressed through four interactive workshops with people from research and/or Division sectors at the Vital Links State Forum in May, the GP & PHC Research Conference in July, the Divisions of General Practice Network Forum in November and the NSW PHCRED meeting in December 2005.

Findings were also reported in PHC RIS infonet. In addition we developed a new section 'Effective Links' in the December issue to highlight examples of promising linkage practice in either Divisions or universities. To ensure the findings reach the academic literature, the investigators of this project commenced writing a journal article in December.

The final report and summary document for this project are available from the PHC RIS Publication Catalogue.