My contribution is a systematic account of strategies for cooperation and feedback between public health sciences and research. A feature both areas have in common is their commitment to empirically based knowledge. "Rational" models of cooperation (or rather, models based on belief in rationality) presume simple linear links between research and its application. Diffusion models, however, seem to be far more adequate for translating public health research into reality. The best model is the "Discourse Model" based on continuous communication and feedback between science and practice. It seems to promote the diffusion of public health innovations most effectively. In the second part I give examples of how to translate the Discourse Model into practical reality. Summing up, its strategic elements are: 1. responsive project shaping, 2. interactive running of projects, 3. shared processing of results, 4. active diffusion of results.
