This paper describes the development and initial implementation of the Compendium of D&I Catalogs, a tool created by a Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium working group to streamline navigation of the proliferating online resources, catalogs and interactive tools designed to guide application of dissemination and implementation (D&I) science. The Compendium is a curated, dynamically-updated list of 35 D&I resource catalogs organized into eight categories: comprehensive resources; frameworks, theories, and models; methods and measures; funding; practitioner resources; training; CTSA infrastructure; health equity. Eight CTSA hubs volunteered to serve as “early adopters” for the tool and completed an evaluation of its initial implementation. Among these “early adopters,” half had implemented the Compendium within their websites, describing the web implementation process as “easy.” Remaining “early adopter” respondents cited institutional web development capacity concerns and competing priorities as reasons for delayed implementation. All respondents valued the Compendium’s dynamic updates. Among implementing sites, roughly two-thirds directly embedded the Compendium into their institutional websites, with the others providing a link to the Compendium. For CTSAs striving to meet the rising demand for D&I expertise and resources, the Compendium of D&I Catalogs represents a simple, low-cost tool to enhance accessibility of D&I capacity-building resources.

The efficient and effective movement of research into practice is acknowledged as crucial to improving population health and assuring return on investment in healthcare research. The National Center for Advancing Translational Science which sponsors Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) recognizes that dissemination and implementation (D&I) sciences have matured over the last 15 years and are central to its goals to shift academic health institutions to better align with this reality. In 2016, the CTSA Collaboration and Engagement Domain Task Force chartered a D&I Science Workgroup to explore the role of D&I sciences across the translational research spectrum. This special communication discusses the conceptual distinctions and purposes of dissemination, implementation, and translational sciences. We propose an integrated framework and provide real-world examples for articulating the role of D&I sciences within and across all of the translational research spectrum. The framework’s major proposition is that it situates D&I sciences as targeted “sub-sciences” of translational science to be used by CTSAs, and others, to identify and investigate coherent strategies for more routinely and proactively accelerating research translation. The framework highlights the importance of D&I thought leaders in extending D&I principles to all research stages.