ATSA Strategic Research Agenda · Board Approved July 2026
Forty years of building a field.Now we prove what it can do.
ATSA was founded on a conviction: that sexual harm can be understood, treated, and prevented. The research has borne that out. The next chapter is making that evidence impossible to ignore — in policy, in funding, and in the communities this field serves.
A field that has earned the right to lead
When ATSA was founded in 1984, the evidence base for treating people who have sexually offended was thin and contested. Recidivism rates were widely misunderstood. Prevention was not yet a serious policy conversation. Clinical practice had few validated tools.
That has changed. Decades of research have produced a sophisticated, evidence-informed field. Risk assessment is validated. Treatment matched to risk level reduces reoffending. Prevention programs, invested in early, work. The field knows things that policy has not yet caught up to. This agenda is about closing that gap — between what the evidence shows and what shapes decisions.
ATSA's strategic plan commits the association to exactly that: ensuring cutting-edge research is funded, translated into practical applications, and used to inform public policy. Researchers are a driving force of innovation in developing interventions that prevent future harm. The Research Leadership Group was convened to turn that commitment into this agenda. Read the full strategic plan →
Three Strategic Priorities
What the field needs to accomplish — and what ATSA will build to make it possible
Priority One
Connect research and practice — durably
The gap between what researchers produce and what practitioners can use is not a knowledge problem. It is an infrastructure problem. ATSA will build the systems that close it: structured exchange forums, translation products that distinguish what we know from what we don't, and a field-informed research agenda set by the questions practitioners actually face.
What this makes possible
- Practitioners shape the research questions, not the other way around
- Findings reach the field before they become outdated
- Real-world data from practice settings strengthens the evidence base
- Members know what the evidence says, where the gaps are, and what to watch
Priority Two
Build a field that can measure its own impact
Treatment that works but cannot demonstrate that it works will lose funding. Prevention that reduces harm but cannot quantify that reduction will lose the policy argument. ATSA will help the field develop the shared tools, outcome measures, and evaluation culture to make its case — to communities, to funders, and to the legislators who write the laws.
What this makes possible
- Practitioners can make a credible, evidence-grounded case to funders
- Shared outcome measures enable learning across the field, not just within programs
- Research answers "what works, for whom, under what conditions"
- The field stops losing ground to programs that cannot show their work
Priority Three
Establish a unified, credible public voice
The public conversation about sexual harm is still largely shaped by fear, not evidence. Laws are named after victims and passed quickly. The research that would change those conversations is rarely in the room when decisions get made. ATSA will build the infrastructure to put it there: a shared public-health frame, policy briefs that translate findings into legislative language, and rapid-response capacity to be present when it matters.
What this makes possible
- Journalists, legislators, and funders know where to go for the authoritative account
- A unified public-health frame replaces fragmented messaging from across the field
- ATSA is in the room when policy is made — not reacting afterward
- Prevention is funded as a public health strategy, not an afterthought
Why This, Why Now
The field has the evidence. The next work is making it matter.
Three decades of research have answered the foundational questions. The strategic challenge has shifted. It is no longer primarily about producing better evidence — it is about moving evidence into practice, policy, and public understanding at a scale the field has not yet achieved.
The research–practice gap is solvable
The tools and findings exist. What is missing is consistent infrastructure to move them between researchers and clinicians. This agenda builds that infrastructure.
Demonstrated impact is the new credibility
Funding follows proof. A field that can measure and communicate its outcomes will attract the sustained investment that a field operating on reputation alone cannot.
Policy is still running on myth
Much of what shapes law and public spending in this area was wrong when it was written. The field is now positioned to replace those myths with a public-health account that holds up to scrutiny.
Research Leadership Group
The researchers who built this agenda
This agenda was developed by a Research Leadership Group selected through a competitive process from ATSA's member researchers, with all applications reviewed by the research members of the ATSA Board of Directors. Their expertise and judgment are the foundation of every priority on this page.
The Research Leadership Group convened in Toronto in early 2026 to develop these priorities. Their work will guide the creation of additional workgroups and expand opportunities for ATSA members to shape the association's research direction going forward.