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How Academic Research Interfaces with the Broader Public

Thematic Group 4: How Academic Research Interfaces with the Broader Public (Outward-Facing Scholarship and Knowledge Mobilization)

This group describes how academic knowledge moves beyond the university into the broader public sphere. Where the previous group focused on how knowledge is generated through engagement with people or entities outside of academia, this group focuses on how research is translated, implemented, disseminated, implemented, and oriented toward public benefit.

These terms share a commitment to scholarly rigor while emphasizing accessibility, usability, and societal relevance. Some address the process of moving knowledge into practice (translation science, implementation and integration science); others emphasize structural transparency and access (open science); still others foreground normative commitments (public good) or measurable external influence (public impact scholarship). Clarifying these distinctions matters because outward-facing academic work should be recognized as scholarship —not reduced to service or outreach.

Similarities and Differences

All terms in this group:

  • Maintain scholarly standards of rigor and accountability.
  • Address how research impacts society beyond academia.
  • Require documentation of impact, dissemination, or access for purposes of tenure, promotion or merit review.
  • Distinguish between scholarly influence and service activities.

However, they differ in emphasis:

Concept Primary Focus Stage of Interface
Public Good Normative societal orientation Institutional mission level
Public Impact Scholarship Measurable external influence Outcome stage
Open Science Transparency and access Across entire research cycle
Translation Science Moving knowledge toward use Post-discovery
Implementation & Integration Science  Adoption and scaling in context During/after uptake

 

What is it?

  • Public good refers to the pursuit of knowledge, research, and education that benefits society as a whole. It means directing the university’s core missions — teaching, research, and service — toward outcomes that are broadly accessible and serve the well-being of communities beyond the institution itself.

 

How do you do it?

  • Making research findings openly accessible and communicating them in a language that non-academic audiences can understand and act on.
  • Designing curricula that prepare students not only for careers but for active, engaged citizenship — through service-learning, community-based projects, and real-world problem-solving.
  • Partnering with communities to identify and address pressing societal challenges rather than pursuing research questions driven solely by academic interest.
  • Extending the benefits of university resources — libraries, facilities, expertise, cultural programming — beyond campus boundaries.
  • Centering equity by directing attention and resources toward communities and populations historically excluded from the benefits of higher education.
  • Evaluating institutional success not only by traditional academic metrics but also by tangible contributions to community well-being.
  • Training students who see service to the public as central to their work, not an add-on.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Public impact scholarship refers to scholarly work that produces demonstrable benefits beyond academia. It maintains methodological rigor while prioritizing real-world influence — policy adoption, regulatory change, professional practice shifts, or measurable community outcomes.

What is it?

  • Public Impact Scholarship refers to scholarly work that intentionally produces measurable benefits beyond the academy by informing policy, practice, public discourse, industry, or community outcomes. It maintains the methodological rigor, theoretical grounding, and peer accountability of academic research while prioritizing accessibility, translation, and real-world relevance.
  • Public impact scholarship differs from academic service in that its primary aim is the production and dissemination of knowledge, not institutional stewardship. It also differs from traditional academic publication models in that impact is assessed not only by citation metrics, but by demonstrable influence on policy, professional practice, industry standards, public understanding, or community outcomes.
  • Public Impact Scholarship is increasingly framed as essential to institutional mission, public trust, and societal relevance. It aligns with broader national movements to recognize research translation, policy engagement, and public scholarship as core components of faculty work. Within Promotion and Tenure contexts, public impact scholarship is evaluated on both scholarly rigor and documented external impact.

 

How do you do it?

Public Impact Scholarship is demonstrated through rigorous scholarly work that achieves documented public influence, including:

  • Producing research that informs public policy, regulatory frameworks, or professional standards.
  • Publishing policy briefs, technical reports, or translational research outputs grounded in peer-reviewed scholarship.
  • Providing expert testimony, advisory input, or white papers based on original research.
  • Collaborating with government agencies, NGOs, industry, or community organizations to apply research findings.
  • Developing tools, frameworks, or models that are adopted in practice or industry settings.
  • Disseminating research through public media, op-eds, podcasts, or public lectures when grounded in scholarship.
  • Documenting measurable impact (e.g., policy adoption, implementation, funding shifts, program creation, regulatory change, widespread professional uptake).
  • Securing grants or contracts that explicitly support translational or impact-oriented research.
  • Clearly articulating the scholarly contribution and evidentiary basis of impact within review materials.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Open science is the principle that research processes, data, and findings should be transparent and freely accessible — accelerating discovery and broadening participation in knowledge creation.

What is it?

  • Open science is the principle that research — including its data, methods, findings, and publications — should be transparent and freely accessible to everyone, not just other academics. The idea is that making the research process open at every stage accelerates discovery, improves reproducibility, and allows broader participation in knowledge creation.

 

How do you do it?

  • In practice, open science encompasses several related movements. Open access publishing makes journal articles freely available rather than locked behind paywalls.
  • Open data means sharing the datasets underlying research so others can verify, reuse, or build on them.
  • Open methods involve making research protocols, code, and tools publicly available, so studies can be replicated.
  • Preregistration involves publicly documenting a study’s design and hypotheses before data collection to reduce bias.
  • And open peer review makes the review process more transparent.
  • Beyond these technical practices, open science also has a democratic dimension — it challenges the idea that knowledge production is exclusively the domain of credentialed experts. Citizen science, community-based participatory research, and public engagement in research priority-setting all fall under this broader umbrella.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Translation science is the study and practice of moving research discoveries across the gap between knowledge and real-world application — ensuring that what is learned through research is actually adopted and used by people, communities, and organizations.

What is it?

  • Translation science (TS) is the work of moving research discoveries into real-world practice. It bridges the gap between what is learned through research and what is adopted and applied by people, communities, and organizations.

 

How do you do it?

  • Originating in health and medical sciences, it is the scientific study of the obstacles that arise at each stage of bringing research into practice — and how to overcome them — treating the process of translation itself as a subject worthy of rigorous investigation.
  • Translational science is often described in phases: turning a discovery into something usable — such as a tool, program, policy, or intervention — then testing it in real-world settings and finally working toward widespread adoption so it reaches the people who need it.
  • Outside of the sciences, translation science is sometimes defined more broadly as the process of making research useful and usable across any domain—education, policy, design, environmental planning—emphasizing knowledge mobilization, co-production, and engaged dissemination rather than a linear pipeline.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

Implementation science examines how and why practices succeed or fail in specific contexts. Integration science focuses on synthesizing diverse knowledge sources to support decision-making and coordinated action. Together, they study how innovations are adopted, adapted, sustained, and scaled within complex systems.

What is it?

  • Implementation & Integration Science is a field of scholarly inquiry focused on understanding how knowledge, evidence, and innovations are effectively implemented, adapted, and integrated into real-world contexts. It addresses the persistent gap between research and practice by studying the processes, conditions, and strategies that enable ideas, technologies, policies, or interventions to be used, sustained, and scaled in complex systems.
  • Implementation science emphasizes how and why practices work (or fail to work) in specific institutional, social, or environmental contexts, while integration science focuses on synthesizing diverse forms of knowledge—across disciplines, sectors, and stakeholder groups—to support decision-making and action. Together, they prioritize context, translation, and usability, recognizing that complex societal challenges require both rigorous evidence and intentional integration across boundaries.
  • In Promotion & Tenure contexts, implementation & integration science is recognized as a legitimate form of scholarship that produces actionable knowledge, advances theory about change processes, and generates measurable impacts beyond the academy.

 

How do you do it?

Implementation & integration science is demonstrated through scholarly activities that study and support the translation of knowledge into practice, including:

  • Designing and evaluating strategies for implementing research findings, policies, technologies, or design interventions in real-world settings.
  • Studying contextual factors (organizational, social, regulatory, cultural, ecological) that shape adoption, adaptation, and outcomes.
  • Developing integrative frameworks, tools, or methods that synthesize knowledge across disciplines and stakeholder groups.
  • Producing peer-reviewed publications, reports, or frameworks focused on implementation processes, integration methods, or applied outcomes.
  • Collaborating with practitioners, policymakers, communities, or organizations as partners in implementation and evaluation.
  • Securing or contributing to grants or contracts that support applied research, pilot projects, or translational initiatives.
  • Documenting outcomes, lessons learned, and broader impacts, and clearly articulating individual scholarly contributions within applied or collaborative contexts.

 

Where can you learn more about it?

  • Bammer, Gabriele. 2026. “Integration and Implementation Sciences (I2S).” Integration and Implementation Insights. https://i2insights.org/i2s/.
  • Bammer, Gabriele, ed. 2013. Disciplining Interdisciplinarity: Integration and Implementation Sciences for Researching Complex Real-World Problems. Canberra: ANU Press. https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/disciplining-interdisciplinarity.
  • Brownson, Ross C., Graham A. Colditz, and Enola K. Proctor, eds. 2012. Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health: Translating Science to Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/5469
  • National Cancer Institute. 2026. “About Implementation Science.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/is/about.