Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A CIHR-funded implementation science team names the KTA Framework in its knowledge translation plan, mapping the project's activities explicitly onto the Action Cycle: identifying a gap in guideline uptake, adapting a clinical guideline to a local hospital context, assessing clinician-level barriers via a survey, running an implementation intervention, and monitoring post-implementation practice change.
- Is an instance
A health-services researcher builds a 'knowledge tool' -- a plain-language clinical decision aid -- as the output of the Knowledge Creation funnel's third phase, after first completing a knowledge inquiry (a scoping search) and a knowledge synthesis (a systematic review) of the underlying evidence.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A funder's generic requirement to 'disseminate findings to knowledge users' is knowledge translation activity, but it is not use of the KTA Framework specifically unless the applicant explicitly structures the work around the funnel/cycle model or cites Graham et al. (2006) -- otherwise it should be described under the broader knowledge translation term, not this one.
- Not an instance
The Diffusion of Innovations model (Rogers) and other implementation-science frameworks describe related but distinct processes for how ideas spread; they are not the KTA Framework unless a project is specifically drawing on Graham et al.'s funnel-and-cycle structure.
Editorial commentary
The Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) Framework is a conceptual model for how research evidence moves into practice. It was introduced by Ian D. Graham, Jo Logan, Margaret B. Harrison, Sharon E. Straus, Jacqueline Tetroe, Wenda Caswell and Nicole Robinson in “Lost in knowledge translation: Time for a map?”, Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions 26(1), 2006, pp. 13-24 (doi:10.1002/chp.47). The paper’s contribution was synthetic rather than novel: the authors reviewed a large body of existing planned-action and knowledge-use theories and distilled the elements they shared into a single applied map.
The framework is widely used because CIHR and other health-research funders adopted its vocabulary, so “knowledge translation” and the KTA cycle became the expected structure for describing implementation work in applications and reports.
Two linked components
KTA is usually drawn as a funnel sitting inside a cycle, and the two parts do genuinely different work. Treating the diagram as a single seven-step process is the most common misreading.
Knowledge Creation — the funnel
The funnel has three phases, each of which distils and tailors the evidence further, making it more useful to the eventual audience:
- Knowledge inquiry — primary research: the large, unfiltered mass of individual studies.
- Knowledge synthesis — systematic reviews, meta-analyses and other aggregation that draws the primary studies into a body of evidence.
- Knowledge tools and products — practice guidelines, decision aids, care pathways, algorithms: the form in which evidence can actually be acted on.
The funnel shape carries the argument. Each stage narrows the volume and increases the actionability, and knowledge can be tailored to the needs of its users at any of the three stages — which is why the framework treats guideline development as part of knowledge creation rather than as the start of implementation.
The Action Cycle — seven phases
- Identify the problem; identify, review and select the knowledge relevant to it.
- Adapt knowledge to the local context.
- Assess barriers and facilitators to knowledge use.
- Select, tailor and implement interventions.
- Monitor knowledge use.
- Evaluate outcomes.
- Sustain knowledge use.
What the framework actually claims
Three features of KTA are frequently lost when it is cited casually:
- The phases are dynamic, not a linear sequence. Graham and colleagues present them as able to occur in different orders, overlap, or run simultaneously, with the cycle feeding back on itself. A project that assesses barriers before adapting the knowledge has not misused the framework.
- The two components interact continuously. The Action Cycle draws on the funnel’s products, and experience in the cycle feeds back into what knowledge needs creating or synthesising. The funnel is drawn inside the cycle for that reason.
- Adaptation is a named phase, not an afterthought. KTA explicitly builds in that knowledge produced elsewhere usually has to be modified for the local setting before it can be used — which is a substantive claim about implementation, not a caveat.
How it is used, and how it is misused
In practice, most projects that describe themselves as KTA-based use only a subset of the phases. Published reviews of KTA applications consistently find the same skew: “identify the problem” is used almost universally, and “sustain knowledge use” is reported least often — an unsurprising asymmetry given that sustainment requires follow-up beyond the typical grant period. Using a subset is legitimate under the framework’s own terms; what is not legitimate is claiming the full cycle when only its opening phases were carried out.
The other common misuse is treating KTA as an evaluation instrument. It is a planning and organising framework: it tells you what phases to think about and in what relation, not how to measure whether an intervention worked. Outcome measurement in phase 6 requires methods the framework does not itself supply.
Relationship to knowledge translation
Knowledge translation is the broad concept — and, in CIHR’s usage, a defined term for the process of moving research knowledge into use. KTA is one named model for structuring that process. A project can practise knowledge translation without ever invoking KTA, and the framework sits alongside other implementation models rather than superseding them: it is deliberately generic about which implementation theory supplies the interventions selected at phase 4.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "KTA" stand for?
KTA stands for Knowledge-to-Action, the name of the framework Ian Graham and colleagues introduced for planning and evaluating knowledge translation (KT) activity.
Who created the Knowledge-to-Action Framework, and when?
Ian Graham and colleagues introduced it in a 2006 paper, ‘Lost in knowledge translation: time for a map?’, published in the Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions. The paper synthesised more than 30 existing planned-action and knowledge-use theories into a single applied model.
What are the two components of the KTA Framework?
The KTA Framework has two linked but distinct parts, usually drawn as a funnel sitting inside a cycle: a Knowledge Creation funnel and an Action Cycle. The funnel narrows research knowledge through three phases (inquiry, synthesis, and knowledge tools/products), while the cycle sets out seven phases for putting that knowledge into practice.
What are the seven phases of the KTA Action Cycle?
The Action Cycle’s seven phases are: identify the problem and select relevant knowledge, adapt the knowledge to the local context, assess barriers and facilitators to using the knowledge, select and implement interventions, monitor knowledge use, evaluate the outcomes, and sustain ongoing knowledge use.
Do you have to complete all seven Action Cycle phases to use the KTA Framework?
No. Graham and colleagues describe the phases as dynamic rather than strictly linear, and they can happen in a different order, overlap, or run simultaneously. In practice, most KTA-based projects use only a subset of the seven phases — reviews of published applications consistently find ‘identify the problem’ used almost universally and ‘sustain knowledge use’ reported least often.
How is the KTA Framework different from knowledge translation (KT)?
Knowledge translation is the broader concept — the general process, and CIHR’s definition, of moving research knowledge into use. The KTA Framework is one particular, named model that researchers and funders use to structure and plan that process; a project can practise knowledge translation without ever invoking the KTA Framework by name.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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