The French experiential knowledge resource center: strengthening and extending its scope of action

Abstract Issue The national committee for experiential knowledge in health promotion (EKHP) aims to promote EKHP and improve professional practices. Since 2017, the committee has created methods and toolkits formalizing the capitalization of EKHP. The levers to put the method into practice are in place, now comes the time to find the best means to foster promotion and appropriation of EKHP works. Description of the problem The national EKHP resource center has been launched in May 2022, online: www.capitalisationsante.fr. It acts as a database where HP practitioners can read, download and upload EKHP capitalization works (∼12-page documents detailing one HP intervention each) and cross-analyses reports. It is driven by three main objectives: 1/ promoting and disseminating HP practitioners’ experiential knowledge, 2/ building a community of practice to improve capitalization practices and 3/ making a useful and transferable data available to practitioners. Results The now two-year-old website has been visited by 32 000+ individuals. More than 120 works, 12 cross-analyses are published. They were submitted by trained HP practitioners and reviewed by an editorial board before publication. The national EKHP resource center offers insight on how HP interventions work from practitioners themselves who share knowledge on their implementation. Compared to best-practices portals, it offers an innovative bottom-up approach to knowledge transfer. The community of practice (CoP) now supports a network of 200+ trained practitioners. This CoP aims to improve knowledge management and ensure the quality of the works produced. Surveys and feedback show that both building up and accessing EKHP meet a high level of interest. Lessons The innovative bottom-up approach and the focus on knowledge management can serve as a model for other settings/countries. In 2024, levers of appropriation will be investigated and collaboration with other HP resource centers will be better identified. Key messages • The now two-year-old national NEKHPRC enhances EK’s part in the HP field by making otherwise unknown data available to the French-speaking HP community. • Building of a strong community of practice ensures the high quality of the bottom-up approach to the uploading of the works.