Health care faces a persistent challenge: even when we know what works, the path of getting what works to patients is slow and uneven. Research suggests it takes an average of 17 years for proven health innovations to be widely adopted in clinical practice, and fewer than 20 percent ever make it that far. The gap between discovery and delivery is not a knowledge problem. It is an implementation problem, shaped by organizational complexity, workforce constraints, and systems that were not designed with adoption in mind.
Implementation science (IS) offers a pathway, providing frameworks and evidence-based strategies to promote the adoption, scaling, and sustainability of innovations. Over the past two decades, implementation science has matured considerably, but the work is inherently cross-sector. The problems it tackles do not sit neatly within any one institution or funding stream.
The Promise of Cross-Sector Collaboration
The strongest IS approaches are enabled when academic researchers, health care delivery systems, and other stakeholders each bring what they do best: rigorous methods, frontline knowledge, and the infrastructure to move solutions at scale. When these sectors work in isolation, each operates within their own strengths but can sometimes miss the bigger picture and opportunity to scale change. When they come together, each can leverage their unique strengths and resources to achieve a triple win: improving outcomes, strengthening systems, and ensuring precision care. To date, most IS partnerships have centered on academic-delivery system collaborations. Private industry, including biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and other life sciences companies has been a less visible player in the field, even though it has a clear stake in understanding how and why therapies reach patients unevenly. That is starting to change, and there is significant opportunity in the shift.
Industry as a Key Partner for Implementation Science
When industry does engage in IS, the contributions tend to complement what academia and delivery systems already do well. Some early examples of where partnership adds value.
- Build workforce capacity: Develop pathways for training and mentorship to support the next generation of implementation scientists.
- Strengthen discovery: Invest in real-world evidence that examines how and why therapies succeed or fail outside of clinical trials.
- Catalyze uptake: Partner with providers to solve the frontline delivery challenges that slow adoption.
- Scale evidence-based practices: Convene multi-stakeholder collective impact partnerships to align mutually reinforcing activities to promote large-scale transformation.
These collaborations are not one-size-fits-all. Partnerships may span a wide spectrum of structures and purposes, driven by research interests and organizational priorities. Funding mechanisms also vary, from traditional sponsored research agreements to consortium models where multiple stakeholders co-invest in shared priorities. Some partnerships tackle specific population health challenges through targeted interventions, while others create broad infrastructure for ongoing collaboration. Industry might provide funding, data, implementation expertise, or simply convening power to bring diverse stakeholders together. The key is matching partnership structure to shared goals, whether that is scaling proven interventions, testing implementation strategies, or building sustainable delivery systems.
AcademyHealth Industry-Researcher Partnership in Action
Recognizing the need for diverse cross-sector collaborations to support IS and the promising opportunities that emerge from these partnerships, AcademyHealth has recently joined with industry partners to tackle key implementation issues and to support the implementation science workforce in a variety of ways.
- The Applied Implementation Science Fellowship, supported by Amgen, is a new workforce development program that aims to bridge the gap between evidence and practice by equipping embedded researchers in health care delivery systems with implementation science skills and knowledge to accelerate the translation and adoption of evidence in real-world settings.
- The Scaling Cancer Biomarker Workgroup is a collective impact initiative with the goal to bring cancer biomarker testing to national scale that was launched with founding sponsorship from Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson. The coalition-based initiative is addressing some of the most persistent barriers to widespread adoption which span critical areas such as diagnostic policy and reimbursement, data infrastructure, clinical workflow integration and decision support, and patient and provider empowerment.
- The Scaling Cognitive Evaluation Workgroup, sponsored by Eli Lilly, is bringing together over 40 ecosystem-spanning experts in a 2-day convening after the Annual Research Meeting to begin developing a strategic roadmap for scaling the practice of cognitive evaluation in primary care.
When proven solutions get caught in the research to practice pipeline, patients suffer and bear the greatest hardship from these delays. Industry maintains an important role in the health care ecosystem and cross-sector collaborations must shift to include industry as a key partner in IS so that health solutions can reach the patients who need them.
Interested in learning more about industry-academic implementation science partnerships? If you are attending AcademyHealth’s 2026 Annual Research Meeting, please check out the panel Stabilizing the Field: Exploring Models for Industry-Academic IS Partnerships, on Monday, June 1, from 9:30-10:45am PT to learn more.
2026 HSR Week
Health services research helps improve care, shape policy, and drive better health outcomes, but its impact is not always visible to the broader public.
From May 26 through June 2, join the HSR community in celebrating the science that makes health care work and the people advancing the field. Throughout the week, participate in daily activities, share your work and perspectives, connect with colleagues at ARM, and help increase visibility for health services research and its real-world impact.
Explore this week's activities, download participation assets, and join the celebration of the science that makes health care work.
Learn more about how to participate in HSR week Learn more about how to participate in HSR week here.