Table 7.

Comparing a pipeline (Fig. 1) and incubator (Fig. 2) approach to generating complex intervention evidence

	Pipeline model	Incubator model
Approach	Linear	Circular
Research team	Uses distinct communities and bridges between them	Blurs the boundaries between clinical and academic communities
Outputs	Focused on a study end point, described in terms of statistical certainty of impact	Continuous/evolving output, described in terms of merit and worth of emerging options
Favoured academic model to support the approach	Distinct academic units with methodological expertise	Dispersed academic capacity integrated into the applied context