Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A CIHR-funded implementation science team names the KTA Framework in its knowledge translation plan, mapping the project's activities explicitly onto the Action Cycle: identifying a gap in guideline uptake, adapting a clinical guideline to a local hospital context, assessing clinician-level barriers via a survey, running an implementation intervention, and monitoring post-implementation practice change.
- Is an instance
A health-services researcher builds a 'knowledge tool' -- a plain-language clinical decision aid -- as the output of the Knowledge Creation funnel's third phase, after first completing a knowledge inquiry (a scoping search) and a knowledge synthesis (a systematic review) of the underlying evidence.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A funder's generic requirement to 'disseminate findings to knowledge users' is knowledge translation activity, but it is not use of the KTA Framework specifically unless the applicant explicitly structures the work around the funnel/cycle model or cites Graham et al. (2006) -- otherwise it should be described under the broader knowledge translation term, not this one.
- Not an instance
The Diffusion of Innovations model (Rogers) and other implementation-science frameworks describe related but distinct processes for how ideas spread; they are not the KTA Framework unless a project is specifically drawing on Graham et al.'s funnel-and-cycle structure.
Editorial commentary
The Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) Framework is one of the most widely cited conceptual models for planning and evaluating knowledge translation (KT) activity, particularly in health-services and CIHR-funded research. It was introduced by Ian Graham and colleagues in their 2006 paper ‘Lost in knowledge translation: time for a map?’ (Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 26:13-24), which synthesised more than 30 existing planned-action and knowledge-use theories into a single applied model.
The two components
The KTA Framework has two linked but distinct parts, usually drawn as a funnel sitting inside a cycle.
Knowledge Creation funnel
The inner funnel represents the progressive distillation of research knowledge through three phases:
- Knowledge inquiry — primary research and existing evidence on a topic.
- Knowledge synthesis — aggregating that evidence (e.g. systematic review).
- Knowledge tools/products — distilling synthesised evidence into a usable form, such as a guideline, decision aid, or toolkit.
Each phase narrows and refines the knowledge, which is why the component is drawn as a funnel: the output gets more concentrated and more directly usable as it moves through the three stages.
Action Cycle
The outer cycle sets out seven phases for moving that knowledge into practice:
- Identify the problem, and identify, review, and select the relevant knowledge.
- Adapt the knowledge to the local context.
- Assess barriers and facilitators to using the knowledge.
- Select, tailor, and implement interventions.
- Monitor knowledge use.
- Evaluate the outcomes of using the knowledge.
- Sustain ongoing knowledge use.
Graham and colleagues describe these phases as dynamic rather than strictly linear: they can happen in a different order, overlap, or run simultaneously, and knowledge phases can influence action phases and vice versa. In practice, most KTA-based projects and published applications of the framework use only a subset of the seven phases — reviews of KTA-labelled studies consistently find ‘identify the problem’ used almost universally and ‘sustain knowledge use’ the least frequently reported.
Why funders and research offices reference it
Because the KTA Framework gives KT a shared, citable structure rather than a vague dissemination requirement, funders — most prominently the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) — and health-services journals reference it as a way for applicants to demonstrate a concrete integrated-KT or end-of-grant-KT plan: naming which Action Cycle phases a project will undertake, and how the Knowledge Creation output (e.g. a guideline or tool) will be produced and handed to knowledge users. Research offices supporting grant applications use it as a checklist for KT-plan sections, and evaluators use it to assess whether a proposed KT strategy is more than a dissemination afterthought.
Relationship to knowledge translation
The KTA Framework is a specific, named operationalisation of knowledge translation (KT) — not a synonym for it. KT is the broader concept (the process, and CIHR’s definition, of moving research knowledge into use); the KTA Framework is one particular model researchers and funders use to structure and plan that process. A project can practise knowledge translation without ever invoking the KTA Framework by name, and a KT plan that cites Graham et al. (2006) and maps activity onto the funnel and cycle is specifically KTA-based.
Related terms
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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