Research translation – enablers and stakeholders

Enablers of successful research translation

Effective research translation depends on key enablers across the health and medical research system. These include implementation capacity within health services and communities, procurement and commissioning readiness, workforce capability across diverse roles and settings, and strong data governance to support responsible access, linkage and use. Industry and philanthropic partners can also act as important enablers, by contributing expertise, resources, infrastructure and investment to support development, scale‑up and sustainability. Strengthening these foundations helps to ensure translation activities are feasible, sustainable and able to achieve impact across different contexts and priorities.

Emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics, are increasingly important enablers of research translation. These technologies can accelerate discovery, support evidence synthesis including living guidelines, and improve implementation through real‑time data and decision support. Ensuring capability to use these technologies responsibly will be critical to future translation efforts.

Research translation stakeholders

Effective research translation requires collaboration across a diverse network of stakeholders. These include researchers and their institutions, consumers and community representatives, clinicians, health service managers, policymakers, healthcare delivery networks, regulatory authorities, industry partners, and research funding bodies. This interconnected ecosystem is inherently complex, with each group playing a distinct yet complementary role in moving evidence into practice. The table below outlines some key stakeholder groups and examples of their contributions to effective research translation.

Research Translation Stakeholder roles are listed below:

Researcher

Table: Stakeholder – Researcher

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Designs research; discovers and develops novel therapeutic candidates; generates proof‑of‑concept and preclinical evidence to support progression to development; leads early‑stage research and optimisation of candidate therapeutics; and may design and conduct clinical trials in line with ethical and regulatory requirements. Recruits participants; generates and analyses evidence on safety and efficacy; and publishes findings to inform clinical practice and regulatory decision‑making.	Leads technical and clinical research for design and validation; evaluates outcomes in controlled studies; and contributes evidence for regulatory submissions and guidelines.	Investigates user needs, clinical effectiveness, and implementation strategies; develops and tests algorithms, AI models, and interoperability solutions; and assesses impact on health outcomes and equity.	Designs and conducts clinical, practice based and implementation research; generates real world evidence; and evaluates effectiveness, safety and value in routine care.	Conducts public health, health services and implementation research; synthesises evidence to inform policy and system design; and evaluates impact, equity and sustainability over time.

Clinician and/or clinician researcher

Table: Stakeholder – Clinician and/or clinician researcher

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Applies evidence directly and implements changes within their own settings; supports priority-setting; drives public health needs including design and conduct of clinical trials while ensuring patient safety and ethical standards; recruits participants; monitors adverse events; and provides real-world feedback for post-market surveillance; participates in novel therapeutic product development.	Co-designs and tests prototypes of devices and diagnostic tools for usability and clinical relevance; supports analytical and clinical validation; interprets results in practice settings, trains staff and patients on safe and effective use and implements within their own settings.	Co-designs and tests iterations of products and services for usability, clinical utility and workflow; designs and conducts clinical trials, real world evidence studies and pilots; recruits trial and pilot participants ensuring appropriate ethics and safety guardrails; trains staff on safe and effective deployment, including onboarding of end users; advises on integration with clinical workflows and health systems.	Delivers interventions in practice; contributes to priority‑setting and study design; participates in clinical trials and practice‑based research; supports workforce capability and professional standards; and provides real‑world evidence on safety, effectiveness and value including development and regular updates to clinical guidelines.	Leads and supports implementation of system‑level changes; contributes clinical expertise to policy and service design; participates in evaluation and quality improvement activities; and supports adoption and sustainability across services.

Consumer and Community

Table: Stakeholder – Clinician and/or clinician researcher

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Consumers and communities need to be involved in all stages, levels, and types of health and medical research. They should be involved from priority-setting and research design to post-market surveillance. Examples of other involvement are below.
Supports priority-setting and study design, involved in clinical trials, informing safety, tolerability and ongoing real-world experience of emerging therapeutics, as well as advising on the ethical and social implications of the therapeutic.	Engages in priority setting, design and usability testing and provides feedback on design, clarity and acceptability; uses devices and diagnostic tests as instructed; and shares experiences with the end product to inform improvements, safety monitoring and equity considerations.	Engages in priority setting; participates in clinical trials, real world evidence studies and pilot programs; provides feedback on end-user experience and accessibility including advising on personal data and privacy considerations; shares experiences to inform product improvements; and contributes to adverse event reporting.	Contributes lived experience to intervention design and delivery; informs acceptability, accessibility and cultural safety; and participates in evaluation, feedback loops and continuous improvement.	Engages in priority setting and co design of policies, programs and services; contributes lived experience to system reform; and participates in consultation, monitoring and evaluation to support equity and accountability.

Tertiary Education Institution

Table: Stakeholder – Tertiary Education Institution

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Ensuring translational thinking is embedded in health science graduates and developing a workforce capable of progressing promising therapeutic research into clinical developments.	Developing graduates and professionals who clearly understand how medical devices move from prototype to safe, evidence‑supported clinical use, enabling smoother downstream adoption by health systems.	Embedding skills such as digital literacy, data governance, AI ethics, and evaluation methods in relevant curricula such as health sciences, biomedical engineering, software engineering and computer science.	Embeds implementation, clinical research and practice-based evidence generation in clinical and allied health curricula; supports continuing professional development and workforce capability.	Embeds public health, systems thinking, implementation science and evaluation in education and training programs; supports leadership capability for system improvement and reform.

Research Organisation

Table: Stakeholder – Research Organisation

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Provide translational research infrastructure and governance; lead higher risk foundational and early-stage research that underpins therapeutic discovery; support discovery‑to‑translation pathways; manage intellectual property and technology transfer; enable industry partnerships; support target validation, pre‑clinical development and early‑phase trials; and contribute to priority setting aligned to unmet health needs and public benefit.	Provide engineering, design and translational research capability; support early-stage innovation and novel device development; support prototyping, verification and validation; manage intellectual property and regulatory‑ready development; enable partnerships with industry and health services; and contribute to evidence generation to support regulatory, funding and adoption decisions.	Provide data science, digital, AI and evaluation capability; support responsible data governance, privacy and cybersecurity frameworks; enable co‑development and testing with end‑users and health services; support early‑stage innovation and advanced analytics, including artificial intelligence; support regulatory readiness where required; and generate evidence on effectiveness, safety, equity and system impact.	Provide platforms for practice‑based, implementation and health services research; support governance, ethics and data access; enable evaluation of effectiveness, safety and value; facilitate collaboration across disciplines and services; and support scale‑up and sustainability of effective interventions; contribute foundational and translational evidence to inform new models of care.	Support priority setting, policy‑relevant research and evidence synthesis; undertake foundational population and systems research that informs long‑term reform; provide implementation science and health economics expertise; generate system‑level evidence to inform policy, funding and reform; support partnerships with governments, communities and services; and enable monitoring, evaluation and learning at scale.

Health services

Table: Stakeholder – Health services

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Provide real-world settings for clinical trials and evaluation; support governance, ethics and site readiness; enable recruitment and delivery of trials; contribute to implementation, adoption and post-market monitoring within service delivery contexts; and provide system-level feedback on feasibility, safety, value and integration into care pathways.	Support evaluation and validation of devices in real-world clinical settings; enable procurement, governance and safe implementation; integrate devices into clinical workflows; provide infrastructure, workforce training and quality assurance; and monitor performance, safety and value in routine care.	Enable testing, evaluation and implementation of digital health technologies within clinical workflows and systems; support data governance, privacy and cybersecurity requirements; integrate technologies into service delivery and information systems; build workforce capability; and monitor safety, effectiveness, usability, equity and system impact in real world use.	Lead adoption and delivery of interventions in routine care; support embedded and practice-based research; enable workforce training, capability and service redesign; implement evidence-based models of care; and generate real-world evidence on effectiveness, safety, value and sustainability.	Lead implementation of system-level and service design changes; embed research in service delivery and quality improvement; support policy implementation and evaluation; contribute data and insights to inform system performance, equity and sustainability; and enable scale-up and sustained use of effective interventions across health systems.

Industry

Table: Stakeholder – Industry

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Has a critical role across the research translation pathway, including early engagement in discovery research and development to inform commercial decision making, co-development, and pathway design alongside researchers and health services. Invests and co‑invests public and private funding across the research translation pathway, and in some cases receives public funding, to share risk and support development, evaluation, scale‑up and sustained delivery of innovations with public value.
Partners in the development and translation of therapeutic products by contributing sponsorship, design, research and development, regulatory and manufacturing expertise; co‑designing and conducting clinical trials with researchers and clinicians; ensuring patient safety, quality systems, pharmacovigilance and ethical standards; supporting health economic evaluation, regulatory submissions and market access; and undertaking post‑market safety monitoring and continuous improvement.	Leads and supports design, engineering and iterative prototyping of devices and diagnostics in partnership with clinicians, consumers and researchers; undertakes analytical, technical and clinical validation; ensures compliance with regulatory and quality standards; supports health economic evidence generation; and enables commercialisation, scale‑up, distribution, training, reimbursement and post‑market monitoring.	Develops, tests and refines digital products using evidence‑informed and user‑centred approaches; collaborates on evaluation of clinical effectiveness, safety, equity and system impact; ensures data governance, cybersecurity and regulatory compliance where required; supports integration with health system workflows; and maintains products through ongoing monitoring and improvement.	Supports development, dissemination and scaling of training, tools, technologies and service models; partners with health services and professional bodies to support workforce capability, quality improvement and safe implementation; and contributes to evaluation of effectiveness, value and sustainability.	Partners with governments, health services and communities to support system-level innovation, infrastructure and workforce solutions; contributes technical, operational and analytic expertise to implementation and evaluation; supports health economic assessment; and enables scale up, learning and sustainability of reforms.

Funder

Table: Stakeholder – Funder

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Provides financial support for preclinical research and clinical trials; invests in infrastructure and technology for therapeutics development; and influences research priorities through funding allocation.	Provides financial support for ongoing design, development and product iteration (including both hardware and software prototypes, verification and validation, testing and refinement), quality management systems, data set access, usability and clinical development (trials, pilots etc). Enables collaborations between researchers, laboratories, industry and clinicians; and invests in scaling, manufacturing, commercialisation and system capability.		Funds clinical and practice-based research, workforce capability and implementation activities (including dissemination of clinical guidelines); supports evaluation of effectiveness and value in real world settings.	Funds stakeholder engagement, prioritisation activities and policy relevant research, including implementation and evaluation; supports system reform, quality improvement and long-term monitoring to inform scale and sustainability.

Policymaker

Table: Stakeholder – Policymaker

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Sets local, jurisdictional and national health priorities for research focus; and ensures equitable access and pricing policies.	Enables appropriate regulatory, quality and reimbursement models; supports integration into health services and digital systems; and promotes equitable access and appropriate use across jurisdictions.		Supports adoption through policy levers, funding and system incentives; and ensures alignment with workforce and service delivery priorities.	Leads policy development, reform and system stewardship; facilitates cross sector coordination; and monitors implementation, impact and equity over time.

Regulator

Table: Stakeholder – Regulator

Therapeutic products	Medical devices	Digital Health	Clinician-delivered and procedural interventions	Public health and health system-level interventions
Sets quality standards and data expectations for research and development activities, reviews all safety and efficacy data throughout development, and safety monitoring.	Establishes standards for safety, efficacy, quality, and interoperability; approves devices for market entry; and supports innovation through streamlined regulation.	Establishes standards for safety, quality, and interoperability; approves devices for market entry; and supports innovation through streamlined regulation. Non-therapeutic regulators may also impose regulation with respect to data storage, cybersecurity and privacy.	Supports safe and ethical delivery through professional standards, accreditation and oversight where relevant.	Ensures policies, programs and system reforms align with legal and regulatory requirements; and enforces accountability and transparency.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples sit across multiple roles in research translation, but their position is distinct from other stakeholders. As rights holders with cultural authority and responsibilities for governance and decision making, they shape the conditions under which research is undertaken, defined and shared, and how accountability is upheld. Governance is exercised through community‑controlled organisations, representative bodies and culturally legitimate community structures, and may also include delivery roles within service settings. Recognising these different roles helps clarify where decision making authority resides and how translation activities should engage with, respond to and be accountable to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.