Research–practice partnerships as drivers of systemic change and learning in local communities

Background

Promoting health and wellbeing among children and young people requires action across interconnected social, organizational and community systems. While systems approaches are increasingly promoted in public health, empirical knowledge on how research and practice can work together to support implementation, learning and sustained systemic change in municipal settings remains limited.

Aim

This study examines how embedded research within a municipal research–practice partnership supports systemic change in children’s and young people’s health and wellbeing.

Methods

The study draws on a community-based partnership between researchers and Ishøj Municipality, Denmark (2024–2030). Researchers take an embedded and formative role, working alongside municipal staff and local stakeholders. Key elements include co-creation processes, systems mapping and multisectoral actions to strengthen everyday conditions for children’s and young people’s health and wellbeing. The evaluation and research design is inspired by the ENCOMPASS framework to evaluate system change.

Results

Lessons from the design and early phase indicate that close research–practice collaboration supports shared systems understanding and strengthens local readiness for systemic work. Experience highlights the importance of aligning implementation, learning and evaluation from the outset. The next phase will apply and further develop the ENCOMPASS framework to support iterative learning and adaptive implementation.

Conclusions

Research–practice partnerships designed to align capacity-building, implementation and evaluation offer a structured approach to operationalizing systems thinking in health promotion. Establishing a shared evaluation framework early supports coherence, learning and comparability across complex municipal initiatives.

Key messages

• Research–practice partnerships help municipalities build capacity for systems thinking and turn complex health challenges into sustained, local action for children’s health and wellbeing.

• Using a shared systems framework from the start aligns implementation, learning, and evaluation, strengthening adaptive change and evidence generation in community health work.