By law, private foundations like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) are prohibited from lobbying or financially supporting any lobbying efforts of its staff, grantees, or other partners. But as researchers working on high-profile policy issues, it is not always clear if our activities could be considered lobbying.

A lack of a shared language is one barrier to turning research into action, but it’s not the only one. A few weeks ago, we sat down with a group of local decision-makers to find out how we, as researchers, can more effectively ensure that our research contributes to real-world improvements in population health, well-being, and equity.

A few weeks ago, we sat down with a group of local decision-makers to find out how they think about and use research, and what facilitates or hampers acting on research to develop evidence-based policies. In part two of this series, we’ll share some of their advice for communicating and disseminating your work to non-researchers more effectively.