TABLE 1.

Advantages and disadvantages of health services researchers working within healthcare organizations

	Advantages	Disadvantages
For decision-makers	Increased interaction with researchers Allows decision-makers easy access to researchers to support decision-making Conduit for interactions with external health services research expertise Helps foster innovation Allows development of a more relevant research agenda Greater potential for research findings to influence decision-making Greater potential to draw on external research funding sources to support organization objectives	Resources for researchers may be used for some projects that are not specifically focused on the organization Researchers' timelines are often too long to be useful for decision-makers Requires organizational resources that could be used for other purposes, including service provision
For health services researchers	Increased interaction with decision-makers Allows development of a more relevant research agenda Greater potential for research findings to influence decision-making Facilitates development of researcher/decision-maker collaborations required for many grant funding competitions Facilitates access to organizational data sources	Less control over research agenda Dilemma between methodological rigour appropriate for academic audiences and relevance/timeliness for decision-maker audiences Involvement of decision-makers in research projects can result in more complex research ethics contexts Confusion around performance assessment