Interview and survey findings highlighted several strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to support future development of online knowledge sharing platforms.

Discussion Online knowledge sharing supports six ‘pillars’ of successful research and innovation partnerships. This requires distributed forms of leadership and linking of different knowledge sharing strategies, and careful combination of platforms with communities of practice.

Conclusion Online knowledge sharing provides pragmatic and timely strategies for health professionals in the UK to apply research evidence to their practice. Our study provides generalisable, practical insights in how to develop and implement a knowledge sharing platform.