Capacity, capabilities and culture tools

Tools to assess research capacity, capabilities and culture

Research capacity, capabilities and culture tools support the measurement of: 1) capacity to engage in and with research, implementing research into practice; 2) capabilities to successfully undertake research; and 3) culture required to support research activity. These can be assessed at an individual, team/service and organisational level. Below are some examples of research capacity, capabilities and culture tools.

Research Capacity and Culture (RCC) tool

The Research Capacity and Culture (RCC) tool is a validated tool with three domains to measure research capacity and culture at organisational, team and individual levels.

The following research paper describes the validation of the RCC:

  • Holden, L., Pager, S., Golenko, X. & Ware, R.S. (2012) Validation of the research capacity and culture (RCC) tool: Measuring RCC at individual, team and organisation levels. Australian Journal of Primary Health, 18, 62–67: https://www.publish.csiro.au/py/PY10081

The following research papers describe the application of the RCC to measure research capacity and culture in the UK AHP workforce:

  • Comer, C., Collings, R., McCracken, A. et al. (2022) Allied health professionals’ perceptions of research in the United Kingdom national health service: a survey of research capacity and culture. BMC Health Serv Res, 22, 1094:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08465-6  
  • Cordrey, T., King, E., Pilkington, E. et al. (2022) Exploring research capacity and culture of allied health professionals: a mixed methods evaluation. BMC Health Serv Res 22, 85. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022–07480-x  

Self-assessment of organisational readiness tool (SORT) 

SORT is a self-administered tool applied at an organisational level to measure the ‘research readiness’ of a healthcare organisation to support nurses to undertake research activity. Whilst SORT has been designed for our nursing colleagues, it is a helpful tool to refer to. It covers the following areas: 

  1. Releasing potential – spotting talent, enthusiasm and resilience, ‘learning by doing’, training and research skill use in practice. It also covers understanding the importance of an enabling environment, facilitating and supporting research careers from the start. 
  2. Embedding research – reducing barriers to research related activities by providing time and resources. It covers making research legitimate in the organisation, recognising the impact of research and nurses’ contribution to research. 
  3. Linkages and leadership – activities related to forming research links outside the organisation, promoting nurse research leadership to influence the wider research agenda. 
  4. Inclusive research delivery – activities related to supporting public and patient involvement in research. It also covers engaging the wider nursing workforce in delivering portfolio research, creating more opportunities to deliver research and making the contribution of nurses visible. 
  5. Digitally enabled research – activities related to research leadership and skills in digital technologies and data science including the skills needed to undertake research and service developments. 

You can read more about the SORT tool here: NHS England » Self-assessment of organisational readiness tool (SORT)