Development of an Australian practice-based research network as a community of practice

There are many aspects of the communities of practice (CoP) framework that are applicable to the development of a practice-based research network (PBRN), where the focus is upon building primary health-care workers' research capacity and research questions. However, there is limited literature focussed on the application of CoP principles applied to research capacity building in Australia. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, through a case study, how a developing PBRN, the Illawarra and Southern Practice Research Network, successfully applied the theoretical foundation of CoP to develop a PBRN in a time- and resource-limited context.