Meet the Editor: An Interview with LauraEllen Ashcraft, our new Associate Editor for Implementation Science Communications
Published in Healthcare & Nursing, Sustainability, and Public Health
LauraEllen Ashcraft, PhD, MSW is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Her research advances implementation science methods, including systematic evidence synthesis, implementation strategy identification and evaluation, mixed-methods implementation evaluation, and informatics-driven approaches to knowledge aggregation from the biomedical literature. Her substantive expertise spans maternal health equity, veterans' health and quality improvement, and chronic pain management in primary care, with particular interest in advancing both pragmatic and methodological advancements in implementation science. Dr. Ashcraft serves as an Implementation Scientist at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center's Center for Healthcare Evaluation Research and Promotion, is a member of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) Leadership Team, and is faculty for the Penn Implementation Science Institute. She holds a PhD in Social Work and an MSW from the University of Pittsburgh.
Your path into implementation science came through social work. How has that background shaped the way you approach implementation research today?
The field of social work significantly impacts the ways in which I think about implementation science scholarship. Some of the key tenets of social work include the person-in-environment and a strengths-based approach.
The person-in-environment perspective says that human behavior can only be understood by understanding not only the individual but also the layers of their surroundings and the interaction therein. This aligns well with key concepts in implementation science, specifically the importance of understanding context and contextual assessment. Understanding context and how it interacts with an implementation effort is important, not just in the pre-implementation phase, but also throughout implementation and into sustainment.
The strengths-based perspective is foundational to social work practice. In the same way, using a strengths-based approach in implementation research can be transformational and lead to innovations in strategies and mechanisms. To build on this, I work to recognize the strengths and expertise in each person. In implementation research, this manifests as prioritizing feedback and perspectives from innovation deliverers, recipients, and community members.
Much of your work focuses on implementation science methods and theory. For readers who may be less familiar with this area, why does theory matter, and how does it help us understand implementation challenges?
Theory is foundational to all the work we do, whether or not we acknowledge it. Theory underlies our assumptions about why things happen in a certain way. I came to implementation science through Diffusion of Innovations Theory and found that by being explicit in why I thought things happened in a certain way, I could better articulate where gaps existed. Additionally, an intimate knowledge of theory was helpful in coming up with research questions. For example, if you know the stages and factors already suggested by Rogers in the Innovation-Decision process, you can ask better research questions and identify where shifts in knowledge may be occurring in the field.
Knowing theory allows scholars to do a better job of critiquing what has existed and what currently exists. We can more easily identify what has been done before and what is truly novel. In this way, we can better help shape current discussion in the field of implementation science and work collaboratively to advance the field.
Equity is a central theme in your work. What do you see as the biggest opportunities for implementation scientists to improve health equity in the coming years?
Implementation science seeks to close the evidence-practice gap. Despite our best efforts, the gap is only increasing for certain groups across the globe. In the coming years, the need to center and actively address health equity, ensuring that every person has the opportunity to be as healthy as possible, will become an issue of critical importance.
What does this look like in practice? Beyond the typical approaches already recommended by many in implementation science, I’m particularly passionate about learning from all sources of knowledge, ranging from empirical to community and experiential knowledge. Specifically, I want to elevate knowledge and implementation innovations from LMICs and low-resource settings. Historically, the approach has been to take knowledge from the high-income countries, specifically those in the northern hemisphere, and “export” it to other countries. I reject this notion. As someone who sits in the northern hemisphere, I recognize the need for bidirectional learning and listening, specifically from implementation scholars and community members globally.
For researchers who are early in their careers, what advice do you wish someone had given you when you were starting out?
Read, listen, digest, repeat. As an early career implementation scientist or emerging scholar interested in implementation science, it is important to understand and learn from the existing scholarship. Many early career scholars bring a unique combination of insights that are complementary to the existing foundations in the field. In order to make the most meaningful contribution, it is really important for early career scholars to understand and digest what already exists. This seems tedious, and I remember being anxious to make my mark on the field. Yet, building a solid foundation of existing knowledge (and a critique of that knowledge) is key to long-term success in scientific inquiry.
As you take on this editorial role, what are you most excited about? Are there particular areas of implementation science that you hope to help champion through the journal?
I am excited to join Implementation Science Communications to contribute to the field through this service. I’m passionate about the advancement of theory and methods broadly. Specifically, I want to champion scholarship that thoughtfully critiques and advances theory, models, frameworks, and methods. For example, manuscripts should consider the degree to which the applied TMF and methods did or did not support the research goals. For instance, to what degree did CFIR account for the existing context and where did it fall short? How did the use of exploratory qualitative mixed methods limit your ability to interpret your quantitative results? We can continue to advance implementation science through ongoing critical appraisal and reflection of our methods and theoretical applications.
Finally, on a more personal note, how do you like to spend your time outside of work?
I enjoy gardening in the spring, summer, and fall. I have a robust tomato crop from between 7 and 12 plants in any given year. A favorite summer lunch is toasted sourdough with fresh tomato and homemade pesto! I love watching soccer/football. I am the current President of the Stateside Seagulls, the official US supporters’ group for Brighton and Hove Albion of the English Premier League. We currently have over 1,100 members. I also support local US-based soccer and am an avid fan of the Pittsburgh Riverhounds (men) and the Pittsburgh Riveters (women).
📝 Explore the journal and submit your manuscript.
📢Sign up to receive article alerts from Implementation Science Communications
Follow the Topic
-
Implementation Science Communications
An official companion journal to Implementation Science and a forum to publish research relevant to the systematic study of approaches to foster uptake of evidence based practices and policies that affect health care delivery and health outcomes, in clinical, organizational, or policy contexts.
Related Collections
With Collections, you can get published faster and increase your visibility.
Learning From the Past and Shaping the Future
Implementation Science has published 2,197 papers since its inception in 2006 (as of May 27, 2026). Implementation Science Communications has published 938 papers since it began in 2019 (also as of May 27, 2026). In addition to papers published in these two journals, a larger number of papers focusing on implementation science in health care have been published in other journals over the last 20 years, conservatively around 22,300. This is based on a PubMed search using a specific search string[1], conducted on May 27, 2026. It is important to note that landmark papers in the field were published before 2006. Our purpose in marking this anniversary is to reflect on the field as a whole.
While much of the growth in the literature has come from high-income countries, there has been an increase in the number and scope of papers from lower and middle-income countries, fueling the overall growth.
Arguably, the growth in the literature and underlying research studies shows that the science and practice of implementation have moved from the periphery to mainstream health research. We are interested in papers that document and analyze the change over the last couple of decades—although the history of the field prior to 2006 is also of interest—and propose how this shapes the future of the field. This may be based on bibliographic or citation analysis, surveys among researchers, or other sources. Papers that only review the past, without analysis and future direction, will not be seen as responding to this call.
Examples of topics include, but are not limited to:
- Content analysis or systematic reviews of empirical publications from Implementation Science and/or Implementation Science Communications
- Content analysis of editorials and research agenda-setting articles from both journals, including papers focusing on implementation science published in other journals
- Bibliographic/citation analysis of publications over the 20 years of IS, including other papers published in other journals
- Analyses of geographic, disciplinary, authorship, funding, or institutional patterns in implementation science
Submissions should include critical interpretive analysis of existing literature and provide new insights, ideas, and thoughts from reflection on the existing literature.
This Collection welcomes submissions of a range of article types. Should you wish to submit to this Collection, please read the submission guidelines of the journal you are submitting to, i.e., Implementation Science or Implementation Science Communications, to confirm that the type is accepted by the journal you are submitting to.
Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission systems in Implementation Science or Implementation Science Communications. During the submission process, you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection. Please select "Learning From the Past and Shaping the Future" from the dropdown menu.
Articles will undergo the standard peer-review process of the journal in which they are considered, Implementation Science or Implementation Science Communications, and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.
The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions that they handle through the peer-review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.
[1] ("Implementation Science"[Mesh] OR "implementation science"[tiab] OR "implementation research"[tiab] OR "dissemination and implementation"[tiab] OR "translation science"[tiab] OR "knowledge translation"[tiab]) AND 2006:2026[dp]
Publishing Model: Open Access
Deadline: Mar 09, 2027
Breaking Frameworks: Revisiting, Extending, Integrating, and Theorizing Implementation Frameworks
The field of implementation science has amassed a large number of frameworks3,4,5. These are sometimes also called models, but because the term “model” is used in many other contexts in research, we will use the term “framework.” While many of these frameworks express a goal of supporting research in the implementation of evidence-based practices and programs, researchers and especially new entrants to the field continue to express confusion and uncertainty about how to use existing frameworks and which to use for what purposes. New frameworks are often developed without clarity about how they fit within the existing corpus of frameworks.
Despite the large number of frameworks 4, their use often reflects a lack of deep understanding of the content of the frameworks. Implementation researchers often describe frustration with existing frameworks while continuing to use them. A major issue is that once published in a peer-reviewed venue, there is no clear path to suggest changes or updates to the frameworks. A few, such as the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR)6, the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework7,8, and the RE-AIM framework9, have been updated through processes determined by a relatively small group of researchers10; others remain essentially fixed as they were published, or updated once but not again11,12. This can lead to reification of the frameworks in their original form. These issues may constitute a major “sticking point” for advancing the science of implementation, as well as contributing to complexity for implementation practitioners who use frameworks as tools developed through the science. Emerging global health priorities, including health equity, structural racism, coloniality, climate and planetary health, digital transformation, and policy implementation, raise questions about whether existing frameworks adequately capture power, history, resource constraints, political economy, community agency, and cross-setting adaptation13. The increased geographic scope of published studies adds to concerns about whether theories and frameworks current in the literature support the broader scope.
We also note the importance of understanding the function of existing frameworks, most clearly addressed in the seminal 2015 paper by Nilsen describing an initial taxonomy of theories, models, and frameworks in implementation science5. We note that this paper is now over a decade old. Proposing additional taxonomic categories of frameworks, models, and theories is an important step yet to be taken.
This background informs this collection proposal. We are calling for manuscripts to address the issues, which may include methods (what methods can be used to update or extend existing frameworks), perspective or commentary manuscripts (why is this important), and empirical papers offering new insights, updates, and extensions of existing frameworks. We would also welcome papers that explicitly focus on theorizing based on existing frameworks, focusing on prediction and explanation rather than description14. However, manuscripts proposing new frameworks will be considered only if they clearly demonstrate how the proposed contribution builds on, revises, synthesizes, tests, or challenges existing frameworks, and why a new framework or a substantial extension is necessary. The existing body of frameworks and models within implementation science and practice constitutes an important catalog of knowledge. Our goal is to build on that existing knowledge.
Examples of topics include, but are not limited to:
- Innovative papers that develop new substantive theories or significant theoretical extensions to existing theories
- Methods for classifying and categorizing existing frameworks
- Proposing new domains and constructs for existing determinant frameworks
- Synthesizing across existing process frameworks to describe common elements and areas of departure
- Practical guidance on how to use existing tools such as the “Assess the Dissemination and Implementation Models Webtool” or useful new tools and approaches to help people select and use existing frameworks (these are likely to be assessed for Implementation Science Communications rather than Implementation Science)
This Collection welcomes submissions of a range of article types. Should you wish to submit to this Collection, please read the submission guidelines of the journal you are submitting to, i.e., Implementation Science or Implementation Science Communications, to confirm that the type is accepted by the journal you are submitting to.
Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission systems in Implementation Science or Implementation Science Communications. During the submission process, you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection. Please select "Breaking Frameworks: Revisiting, Extending, Integrating, and Theorizing Implementation Frameworks" from the dropdown menu.
Articles will undergo the standard peer review process of the journal in which they are considered, Implementation Science or Implementation Science Communications, and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.
The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions that they handle through the peer-review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.
Publishing Model: Open Access
Deadline: Mar 09, 2027
Please sign in or register for FREE
If you are a registered user on Research Communities by Springer Nature, please sign in