There are three main venues for you to collaborate with RWJF and other REL grantees:
Annual Sharing Knowledge Conference: You’re invited to the RWJF annual Sharing Knowledge Conference, which is held in the spring of each year. This is a convening of a cross-sectoral community of researchers, practitioners, and thought leaders from diverse sectors to build a transdisciplinary evidence base for a Culture of Health.
Annual Scholar Meeting: The HES4A annual scholar meeting offers opportunities for scholars and RWJF leadership to meet in person, interact with the broader RWJF network, and forge new relationships and collaborations. The annual meeting also provides an opportunity for training and assistance, particularly related to communicating and disseminating research results.
Partners for Advancing Health Equity (P4HE) Collaborative: The P4HE Collaborative is a research learning collaborative that facilitates idea sharing from a wide variety of people and organizations dedicated to advancing solutions to achieve health equity. This cross-sector community shares and learns about effective health equity policies and practices, and helps share this knowledge with decision-makers who can use the data to inform policy and advance actionable and sustainable solutions.
Strategic communications is the bridge that connects the knowledge we create to the actions that improve health and well-being. The Communications Toolbox helps Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grantees with communications best practices. It has articles, webinars, toolkits, and more to help you find important audiences, translate your work, and compel action so many others can benefit from your research. To access the toolbox, visit: www.rwjf.org/communicationstoolbox.html
The Ask an Expert portal is open! Get one-on-one communications support and rapid-response help with your research dissemination planning or implementation. Submit a communications-related question via this form to Metropolitan Group. To get your brain flowing, here are some sample questions:
My research recently got published in a journal. Do you have any suggestions on amplifying this to a larger audience?
I have an upcoming conference, and my research team wants to submit a brief for a session. I've attached the criteria along with our brief. Is there anything else we should include? Is there anyone else we should send this to outside the conference?
I'm seeking to submit my work on racism as a public health crisis and accompanying media analysis to nontraditional/non-health journals. What should I be looking at to create a list of organizations I should send this to?
You'll receive a reply with suggested feedback and links to tools and resources for further help.
By law, private foundations like RWJF are prohibited from lobbying or financially supporting any lobbying efforts of its staff, grantees, or other partners. As researchers working on high-profile policy issues, we need to be thoughtful about how we communicate and promote our research. Scholars are encouraged to reach out to Sheldon Watts ( swatts@rwjf.org ) with specific questions, and he can connect you with the appropriate legal team member. You can learn more about lobbying and advocacy rules by checking out these two Communication Toolbox resources: