Paper short abstract:

Drawing on Derrida's notion of the supplement we will challenge what we claim to be an implicit assumption within evidence-based medicine: that the production of evidence is separate from its transfer and that translation is secondary to the production of evidence.

Paper long abstract:

Knowledge translation has become a buzzword in modern medicine referring to a set of activities bound together by the common goal of 'bridging the gap' between science in laboratories and clinical use, and more generally, putting research evidence into practice.

This paper argues that the concept of knowledge translation is based on a reductive conception of translation that leans on a double presupposition: 1.The research evidence which is translated is "outside translation" in terms of being autonomous, complete and independent of the translational operation. So called barriers and drivers of translation are also understood as outside translation itself. 2. The act of translation is a process of "copying the original" where the translational act itself is a non-act and the translator a non-actor and where the purpose of translation is to transfer the original message in a trustworthy manner without adding, transforming or in any other ways betraying the original.

We will suggest an alternative conception building on Derrida's notion of the "logic of the supplement". On the one hand, knowledge translation names new approaches to the communication of scientific knowledge to different groups in the health care system with the aim of supplementing a lack of knowledge in the receiver. On the other, it demonstrates that a cultural supplement, a concern with target cultures or audiences, is inevitable in the creation of 'autonomous' science and evidence. Hence, we will argue that the division between evidence and its translation is both impossible and unproductive to maintain.