Explainer: Implementation Science

Implementation science seeks to understand and address the gap between knowing what works and successfully putting it into practice. It originated largely in healthcare, where it has been used to understand and overcome the barriers that prevent evidence-based approaches from being successfully implemented in practice. Its application has since expanded into fields including education, social care and justice.

Despite this growing body of knowledge, the application of implementation science within the environmental sector remains relatively limited. The Environmental Policy Implementation Community (EPIC) draws on implementation science, alongside insights from other disciplines concerned with policy implementation, to develop a stronger understanding of what helps environmental policy to work in practice. EPIC is also working to advance the application of implementation science approaches across the environmental sector.

In this presentation, Professor Ioannis Bakolis, Deputy Director of the Centre for Implementation Science at King’s College London, provides an introduction to implementation science, its origins and development, frameworks and key components, and its potential application beyond healthcare.