SUCCESS FACTORS FOR ACHIEVING LONG TERM IMPACT OF A RESEARCH-POLICY PARTNERSHIP

The Institute for Safety, Compensation and Recovery Research (ISCRR) is a unique research-policy partnership between WorkSafe Victoria and Monash University. Having recently celebrated ten years of operation, ISCRR remains focused on delivering high impact research and insights that help to prevent workplace injuries and illness, supporting injured workers to return to health and return to work. Through a unique approach ISCRR works in partnership with WorkSafe and its stakeholders to co-design and deliver an action research program, with a focus on integrating evidence into decision-making processes across the breadth of WorkSafe activities. This is achieved by remaining flexible and adaptable to changing context and priorities, while also operating within a continuous improvement framework. This project identifies and shares the learnings over the course of ISCRR’s operation. These include key success factors working in partnership to create knowledge and influencing decision-making. Success has included wholesale changes to the research model itself, moving from a mostly research broker function to develop as implementation specialists, and integrating research evidence into the development of new WorkSafe processes, policy and programs, developing new methodologies and research translation techniques. New approaches were developed for synthesising research and practice evidence into useful insights to build a shared understanding of current evidence, and collaboratively interpreting findings and communicating learnings, identifying implications for WorkSafe and the broader sector. ISCRR’s partnership model demonstrates what is required to successfully implement a genuine research collaboration that delivers impacts for the community with applicability to various disciplines and both local and international contexts.