New publication: Strengthening the bridge between science, policy and practice by evidence informed innovation

The article co-authored by Maria Teresa Ferazzoli and colleagues – including Vilans’ own Bellis van den Berg and Mirella Minkman – originated in a joint symposium at the 2023 Transforming Care Conference.

Strategy

Vilans’ contribution illustrates its unique role as a public knowledge organisation embedded in the Dutch care and knowledge landscape. With large-scale national programmes like Dignity and pride for the future and digital platforms reaching millions annually, Vilans supports frontline organisations through implementation coaching, digital dissemination, and organisational learning. The article also reflects on Vilans’ evolving strategy – strengthening regional infrastructures and enabling integrated, future-proof care on the most relevant topics in practice.

Common challenge

Drawing on lessons from years of implementation work, the authors explore how each centre developed its own model for translating evidence into meaningful innovation – whether through coaching trajectories, digital knowledge platforms, policy feedback loops, or local learning networks. While each organisation operates in a different context, they share a common challenge: ensuring that knowledge doesn’t remain stuck in documents, but flows into the routines, relationships, and choices that shape daily practice.

The collaboration itself reflects this commitment. The three centres have been learning from one another since the founding of IMPACT, with ongoing exchange of ideas, visits, and co-reflection – for example the 2023 Transforming Care Conference where the ideas for this article were first shared publicly. For Vilans, Nka and IMPACT, this means acting as connectors – between policy and practice, national ambitions and local realities, academic knowledge and practical wisdom.

As the authors note, effective implementation is not simply a matter of “what works”, but about who gets to define what matters, how knowledge is valued, and how change is supported in practice. In a world of rising care demands and stretched systems, it’s precisely this grounded, reflective, and collaborative approach that is most urgently needed.

Highlights from the paper

• Go beyond top-down evidence dissemination. Effective change demands a strategic mix of top-down policy alignment and bottom-up engagement, co-creation, and facilitation at the local level where the professionals and people are present.
• Treat evidence, practice wisdom, and lived experience as equally valid. Triangulating knowledge from research, lived experience, and practice – and treating each as legitimate and complementary. This is both an epistemological and practical shift that helps evidence stick in real-world settings.
• Invest in intermediary infrastructures – like coaches and learning organisations. Centres like Vilans and IMPACT underline the importance of change agents (for example implementation coaches, facilitators) who are embedded in practice and can translate evidence into action. These roles require skillsets often absent from academia and frontline care alike, such as facilitation, organisational development, and systemic thinking.
• Use digital platforms to scale but never disconnect from practice. Digital knowledge platforms (e.g. those hosted by Vilans, which attract millions of users annually) are seen as crucial for scaling insights. But the recommendation is to use them as amplifiers of practice-based work, not as a replacement for direct engagement or contextual tailoring.
• Create feedback loops between practice and policy. A stronger two-way relationship between implementation and policymaking. For example, Vilans’ monitoring work and Nka’s 'remissvar' (formal policy advice processes) help ensure that national reforms are not only grounded in reality but also shaped by it.
• Support the development of learning organisations and regional ecosystems. Recognise that sustained change requires environments that are ready to learn, adapt and collaborate. The recommendation is to actively invest in local/regional infrastructures that are able to absorb and evolve with new knowledge.
• Recognise and rebalance power in knowledge production. Shifting power toward service users, informal carers, and practitioners – not just as informants but as co-creators of knowledge. This is linked to broader calls for co-production and system-level cultural change.
• International collaboration strengthens national reform efforts. Finally, the article itself is a case for increased international learning between centres of excellence. The collaboration between IMPACT, Nka, and Vilans is presented as a model for mutual inspiration, peer challenge, and scaling insights across national borders.