A Recipe for Success: Co-Design and Operationalisation of a Regional Research Capacity Building Programme Using...

Building research capacity among clinicians is essential for bridging the research-practice gap and improving patient outcomes. This is critical given growing evidence that clinician engagement in research is associated with improved patient outcomes, service delivery and health system performance. The Research Ready Grant Program (RRGP) is a co-designed initiative to support clinicians in regional settings to develop and implement research projects grounded in clinical practice. This paper reports the design, governance and operationalisation of the programme as informed by Cooks principles for successful research capacity building.

This paper presents a framework-guided account of the design and operationalisation of the Research Ready Grant Program (RRGP), examining how the programme has been iteratively developed across multiple cycles to respond to the needs of a regional health service. The paper foregrounds the programme's multidisciplinary structure and dual-university collaboration model, offering transferable design insights for institutions seeking to embed sustainable research capacity building in rural and regional healthcare settings.

The design and implementation indicators demonstrate how these principles were translated into programme components (including education, paid mentorship, governance and dissemination supports) and iteratively refined across successive programme cycles using participant feedback and programme records. These findings describe programme operationalisation and evolution rather than outcomes or effectiveness.

The RRGP provides a framework-guided approach for designing and sustaining research capacity building in regional and rural health services. By making visible the programme's multidisciplinary structure and dual-university collaboration model, this paper offers practical design insights for institutions seeking to embed sustainable research capacity within rural and regional healthcare settings.