Editorial: Connecting the bees and the trees
| Pages | 2-3 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17466660200800021 |
| Date | 10 July 2008 |
| Published date | 10 July 2008 |
| Author | Nick Axford,Michael Little |
| Subject Matter | Education,Health & social care,Sociology |
2Journal of Children’s Services
Volume 3 Issue 4 December 2008
© Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Ltd
1Dartington Social
Research Unit, UK
2Dartington Social
Research Unit, UK,
and Chapin Hall
Center for Children,
University of
Chicago, US
Nick Axford1 and Michael Little2
Editorial: Connecting the
bees and the trees
Insights fro m two unlikely s ources may be
showing the way to advances in child well-be ing
on a scale that was barely dreamt of a d ecade
or so ago.
The first source is the Bi ll and Melinda G ates
Foundation, whose grants have traditionally focu sed
on ‘technolo gies’ in healthcar e – new vaccines for
HIV/AIDS, fo r example. But r ecent reorganisation
has added to its departments for Discovery a nd
Development a third D – fo r Delivery; how to get
technologies widely adopted an d implemented
with quality .
The second source is the H arvard strategy
guru Michael Porter. Such wa s his influence on
the medical students he taug ht that a worrie d Dean
of the Med ical School called Jim Yong Kim, Professor
of Social Medicine, to find out why one in four of
them now w anted to go to business school. ‘The
students wer e clear – to m ake a difference, and
Porter had convinced them th at improving deliv ery
mechanisms w ould be the most efficient way t o do
this’ says Kim.1
These forces represent a gro wing awareness
that knowing what works to improve child wel l-
being is n o longer enough. We need to get effective
innovations into systems. The problem is that we
are only j ust finding out how to do this, and it
is difficult . As Laura Hill and colleagues e xplain
in this ed ition, there are numerous barriers to
institutionali sing science-based practices –
excessive co sts, poor fit wi th systems, the rigidity
of many pr ogrammes, insufficie nt staff capacity or
organisational readiness, and so on.
How, then, to increase the uptake of effecti ve
innovations and, eventually, i ntegrate them into
mainstream c hildren’s services provision? Or, to use
a metaphor suggested by Geof f Mulgan, Director of
the Young Foundation, how ca n we connect the bees
and the tr ees?
‘There are the “bees”: the creative social
entrepreneurs or junior officials, community
groups or professionals who develop ideas –
driven by passion, anger or loss, or just by the
urge to make things better.
‘In the other group are the “trees” – the
big public agencies, companies and non-
government organisations with roots, power
and money.
‘As a rule, the bees have energy and ideas but
little capacity to put them into effect, while the
trees have power and money, but find it harder
to think fresh thoughts. Successful change
happens when the two come together, when
the bees pollinate the trees, and ideas that
may have been born over a mug of tea turn into
programmes and policies.’ (Mulgan 2009, p2)
Some possible solutions to these dilemmas
may be offered up by the growing field of
implementation science, sometimes described,
in language reminiscent of the Soviet-era nuclear
experiments, as Type 2 translation research.
In health, ‘translational research’ refers to the
study of the process by which research-generated
knowledge that is relevant to public health outcomes
actually serves the general public. Type 1 translation,
also referred to as ‘bench to bedside’, examines
the application of discoveries from basic scientific
research to the development and preliminary
testing of preventive and treatment interventions.
Type 2 explores how to get ‘services into systems’.
It focuses on the adoption, implementation and
sustainability of evidence-based interventions and
practices by schools, health settings, community-
based organisations and so on (Spoth & Greenberg,
2005).
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