Links between research and its impact on practice: full list of RiLIES11 recommendations

How projects are conceived and planned: the need for relevance for impact

R1. The LIS research community should develop and promote strategies that will help and encourage researchers to seek active engagement from practitioners in designing and carrying out their research.

R2. The LIS research community should develop and promote sector-specific strategies that will encourage funders to support research that is relevant to the needs of the practitioner community.

R3. Researchers should be encouraged to seek high-profile sponsorship and on-going support of research projects, for example, through establishing steering committees including (influential) stakeholders.

Execution of research: the need to involve practitioners for impact

R4. Researchers should be encouraged to address practitioner engagement for impact at the project planning stage, for example, by adopting methods, approaches and dissemination strategies that involve practitioners throughout the project.

Reporting findings: dissemination for impact

R5. Researchers should be encouraged to develop research dissemination strategies aligned to where and how practitioners access new information and create (embed) outputs which support the use of research results

R6. Where appropriate, researchers should be encouraged to include provision for teaching and community support materials in project plans.

R7. Researchers should be encouraged to publish reports with clear lists of recommend-ations, in accessible language. This is in addition to any academic papers researchers may choose to publish.

R8. Those with responsibility for freely available open access repositories of LIS research materials should be encouraged to raise awareness of their resources amongst the practitioner communities. Similarly CILIP should publicise membership benefits that include access to a number of research publications.

Organisational factors: creating a receptive audience

R9. The LIS research community should explore ways in which practitioners in sectors that are more receptive to research may share good practice with others.

R10. The LIS research community should consider providing training to support practitioners’ interest in research.

R11. CILIP should require on-going CPD to encourage practitioners to engage with research.

1 The full project report can be found at http://lisresearchcoalition.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/rilies1_report.pdf