How can research become useful in everyday practice without losing the rigour that makes it trustworthy? Gerard Hodgkinson revisits that question in a 2026 commentary on the divide between researchers and practitioners in work and organisational psychology.

The problem is still open

Hodgkinson argues that the divide has persisted and, in important respects, intensified. He discusses how research incentives, assessment and the needs of different groups can pull research and practice apart. This is a critical commentary, not a trial or systematic review of clinical training.

Engagement and rigour belong together

The commentary explores collaboration between researchers and practitioners, the use of different sources of evidence in decisions, and problem-led design. It also warns against pursuing practical impact at the expense of theoretical and methodological quality.

Questions for a training lead

VeinTrain draws three questions for its own training-design work from this discussion:

• Have the people who will use the training helped define the problem?
• Can each claim be traced to an appropriate source, with its limitations retained?
• How will the organisation assess whether the resulting material is useful in its setting?

These are contextual questions prompted by the paper. The paper does not evaluate VeinTrain or prove that HALO closes the research-practice divide. Clinical teaching still needs its own clinical evidence, local policy and workplace assessment.

Source: Hodgkinson (2026), The practitioner-researcher divide in Industrial, Work, and Organizational psychology: Reflections on progress and the challenges ahead, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,99:e70117. Level 3 commentary. The author states that the views are personal and need not represent his university, the journal or the British Psychological Society.

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