Why do promising interventions struggle to become part of everyday care? This intensive, three-day course explores implementation science and focuses on the work involved in introducing, embedding, and sustaining evidence-based practice and other innovations in health and care.

Led by Professors Carl May and Tracy Finch, the course examines the four kinds of work through which implementation happens: how people make sense of a practice, commit to it, carry out the work, and assess its effects. Grounded in evidence and attentive to context, the course builds on their internationally recognised work to develop normalisation process theory (NPT) and its practical applications. Their work provides a framework for shared understandings of the processes that lead to implementation outcomes.

The course is highly participatory. Participants are invited to bring a current, completed, or planned implementation project and use it throughout paired exercises, group workshops, and structured peer review. Participants will apply NPT and its practical tools to diagnose challenges and identify ways forward for their work. Patient-Centred Equity Design will help participants examine whose needs are served and who bears the burden of change in implementation projects. The SPRINT pathway will support them in turning  analysis into a structured plan for leadership, adaptation, participation, learning, and long-term integration of innovations in practice.

Designed for practitioners and researchers with varied experience, this course brings theory, evidence, and practical decision-making together in a single learning journey. You will leave with an integrated analysis of your own project, feedback from peers, and a clearer plan for putting evidence-informed practice into routine use.