RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access What is a research derived actionable tool, and what factors should be considered in their development? A Delphi study Susan Hampshaw 1,3* , Jo Cooke 2 and Laurie Mott 3 Abstract Background: Research findings should be disseminated appropriately to generate maximum impact. The development of research derived ‘ actionable’ tools (RDAT) as research outputs may contribute to impact in health services and health systems research. However there is little agreement on what is meant by actionable tool or what can make them useful. We set out to develop a consensus definition of what is meant by a RDAT and to identify characteristics of a RDAT that would support its use across the research-practice boundary. Methods: A modified Delphi method was used with a panel of 33 experts comprising of researchers, research funders, policy makers and practitioners. Three rounds were administered including an initial workshop, followed by two online surveys comprising of Likert scales supplemented with open-ended questions. Consensus was defined at 75% agreement. Results: Consensus was reached for the definition and characteristics of RDATs, and on considerations that might maximize their use. The panel also agreed how RDATs could become integral to primary research methods, conduct and reporting. A typology of RDATs did not reach consensus. Conclusions: A group of experts agreed a definition and characteristics of RDATs that are complementary to peer reviewed publications. The importance of end users shaping such tools was seen as of paramount importance. The findings have implications for research funders to resource such outputs in funding calls. The research community might consider developing and applying skills to coproduce RDATs with end users as part of the research process. Further research is needed on tracking the impact of RDATs, and defining a typology with a range of end-users. Keywords: Delphi study, Knowledge transfer, Dissemination, Knowledge translation, Research derived actionable tool (RDAT) Background Considerable resources are invested in applied health and social care research yet there is an acknowledged gap between what is known and what is acted upon [1]. There is a growing interest in addressing this gap, and a simple starting point is the need to communicate re- search findings appropriately to audiences that are in a position to act. Research funding bodies expect their grant holders to disseminate their findings however, there is a lack of clarity about what is meant by dissem- ination [2]. Wilson et al. in their scoping review of con- ceptual frameworks to support dissemination identified 33 frameworks. Only 20 of these had theoretical under- pinnings, for example on the use of persuasive commu- nication such as within the Lavis framework [2, 3]. In addition, few funding bodies offer guidance on dissemin- ation beyond the need to do so [2]. We acknowledge that there is considerable interest in co-produced approaches to research planning, activity, and dissemination, and there are a number of initiatives funded with this in mind. Examples include the Inte- grated Knowledge Translation Research Network in Canada, and the National Institute for Health Research Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (NIHR CLAHRC) in England. These collab- orations are designed to better bridge the knowledge to action gap [4–9]. * Correspondence: SMHampshaw1@sheffield.ac.uk 1 School of Health Related Research, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK 3 Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, Doncaster, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Hampshaw et al. BMC Health Services Research (2018) 18:740 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3551-6