Incite to practice: Development of a realist-informed program theory to support implementation of intersectoral partnerships

Donald Maciver - ORCID: 0000-0002-6173-429X https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6173-429XPolicy internationally is supportive of intersectoral partnerships (ISPs) for promoting positive outcomes among people with complex social, psychological, and physical needs. This realist-informed study describes the development of a program theory to provide insight into enactment of effective ISPs. Interviews were completed with 18 senior staff with leadership roles in six ISPs, including voluntary, statutory, and commercial organizations, supporting people with complex health and social care needs. An iteratively developed and refined program theory, termed the “Incite” model, was developed, with collaboration with participants and an advisory group, including people with lived experience. Important contextual conditions that emerged included organizational culture, historical perspectives, policy, and social determinants of health. Mechanisms included desire for change, creating safe psychological spaces, establishing shared values, and talking about power. Outcomes included transformed world view, increased psychological safety, clarity of purpose, fluidity of relationships, and power shifting. Three phases of partnership development were also identified within the model. This study has led to a clearer, more rigorous, and systematic understanding, with recommendations for how ISPs might be developed or expanded. How the Incite model may be operationalized is discussed, as well as implications for policy, practice, and research.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We acknowledge funding contributions from the Scottish Government’s Third Sector Division and Mental Health Division and Community Covenant Grant.https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244021103831611pubpub

Enabling scientific data on the web

Scientific data does not exist on the Web in the same way as the written word; reviews, media, wikis, social networks, and blogs all contribute to the interconnected nature of ordinary language on the Web. Network effects create additional value from seemingly minor contributions to the Web. But nothing such as this exists for scientific data. Simply put, within the Open Web Platform, we cannot currently turn and apply similar mechanisms for scientific work without great effort. Thus, the Web has not so far enabled Science as well as it has enabled dissemination and interconnection for the written word: to truly enable Science on the Web, we must endeavor to make data and its semantics first-class Web constituents. This thesis focuses on solving this problem by enabling scientific data to exist on the Web in such a way that it can be processed both as viewable content and consumed data. Starting from the principles on which the Web has so far thrived, we propose solutions to enable complex data exchanges while preserving the Web as it stands. We introduce the Partition Annotate Name (PAN) methodology, which relies upon embracing the core architectural principles of the Web: name things with URIs; process common data formats; use common rules under a shared contract between publisher, developer, and consumer