EViR Working and Interest Groups 

The collaborative work of the Forum has resulted in the establishment of several longer-term working groups: 

  • Pre-clinical Working Group to address the barriers the pre-clinical community faces towards the implementation of the GPs.  
  • Principle 10 Working Group – Dissemination and implementation (D&I) interest group to characterise current D&I practices, identify opportunities to improve collaborative efforts and set an agenda for future activities.  
  • Principle 10 Interest Group – Dissemination and implementation (D&I) interest group – This is a broader group established at the September 2019 conference with over 40 members, meets three times a year and offers the opportunity to meet D&I peers from organisations around the world to address the issues raised at the 2019 D&I international survey.  
  • Principle 1 Working Group – Stakeholder engagement to assess the involvement of stakeholders in pre-award priority setting, types of stakeholders involved, and funder evaluation of stakeholder involvement in priority setting to improve their engagement. 
  • Self-audit Working Group – To further improve the quality of research, the Forum has designed a novel Self-Audit Tool for funding organisations to assess their current performance against the Guiding Principles and create action plans for improvement.  

Principle 10 Working Group

The pre-clinical working group was established to understand the gap that persists between evidence from research and its use in practice. The group aimed to understand the specific D&I activities and challenges of health research funders.

A survey was shared with health research funders in August 2018. The main goal of the study was to gather information on funders’ D&I practices. The D&I working group used the results of the survey to get a better understanding of the initiatives in place and funders’ level of effort in six practice areas: release of findings, dissemination, knowledge exchange/partnering, implementation, building capacity, and implementation research. 

The results of the survey were published in the Implementation Science Communications Journal in 2022 and indicated that dissemination and implementation of research findings is a priority, however, models of dissemination and implementation differ across organisations. 

Principle 10 Interest Group

The 2019 Dissemination and Implementation (D&I) survey indicated that dissemination and implementation of research findings is a priority, however, models of dissemination and implementation differ across organisations. The D&I interest group offers an opportunity for health research funders to collaborate, including sharing good practices, which will increase members’ D&I learning and knowledge development.

The D&I interest group was created following the first EViR conference in September 2020 and meets three times a year. D&I interest group members meet to discuss relevant common issues in a particular area as well as share and learn best practices from colleagues from organisations around the globe.  

D&I Interest Group meetings: 

2022 

2021 

Pre-clinical Working Group

The pre-clinical working group was created following the Washington EViR 2019 meeting where it was acknowledged that some of the EViR Guiding Principles might need further assessment for the pre-clinical field. A working group with members from funders that are involved in funding preclinical studies was therefore established. The differences between the clinical and preclinical fields in health research will be made transparent and discussed, which will lead to suggestions for how to deal with these differences in practice. 

A survey has been shared with both preclinical and clinical health research funders. The main goal of the study is to gather information on funders’ opinions and experience with the 10 Guiding Principles. The preclinical working group will use this information to get a better understanding of the initiatives currently in place, the different factors that could influence the implementation of the Guiding Principles for preclinical research and barriers to translation between preclinical and clinical research.