Within health systems, implementation research (IR) is embedded in real-life settings and its goal is to improve health interventions by helping to highlight specific implementation bottlenecks and barriers, and by suggesting solutions identified through close collaboration with those who deliver health programmes. Ideally, these solutions will become part of the intervention, lending sustainability to the research and improved delivery.
With uptake and sustainability of solutions as the ultimate goals of IR, there are a series of steps that must be completed to attain them. This module outlines each of these steps in a progressive fashion, where each step builds upon the success of the preceding one.