Capacity Building

Our aim is to bring together our project staff, investigators, in-country institutions and partners to support research capacity and training.

In this project, we have five methodological hubs to deliver capacity building.

These methodological hubs:

• Support and deliver capacity building activities, based on in-hub expertise 

• Support methodological development of researchers at all levels

• Foster peer-to-peer support for junior and mid-level researchers to deliver the project and South-South learning

• Foster collaboration across study countries through joint initiatives (papers, conferences)

• Promote exchange of good practice

Person-centred

• Grounded capacity exchange
• Reflexive, critical exchange
• Adaptive, learning approach
• Codesign

What is the experience of doing this as a postdoc, fieldworker in (country)?

Institutional

• Theory/practice, focus on fieldwork
• Flexible and pragmatic
• Deep rigour in grounded approach
• Commitment to equitable research partnerships

Cross-institutional/wider strategic

• The ethical implications of verbal autopsy: responding to emotional and moral distress
• Using scientific authorship criteria as a tool for equitable inclusion in global health research

The health economic hub brings together our project staff, investigators, institutions, and partners working to support health economics research capacity and its use within policy in lower-income settings. 

The members of the hub are currently delivering supervision to postdocs and PhD students working on our project. They are also focusing on preparing educational and training materials in a variety of health economics topics. You will be able to access examples of these materials shortly.  

In the meantime, please access the free resources from the Global Health Economics Hub website.

The health systems and policy hub brings together our project staff, investigators, institutions, and partners working to support capacity in health policy and systems research.  

The hub members have expertise in qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods and evidence synthesis approaches to examine health system goals, the system building blocks to achieve them and the policies to support them.

The hub is focusing its efforts on preparing tutorials, presentations and lectures.

News

While community participation is an established pro-equity approach in Primary Health Care (PHC), in practice it can take many forms, and the central category of power is under-theorised. In this seminar, a paper is presented where the objectives were to (a) conduct theory-informed analysis of community power-building in PHC in a setting of structural deprivation and (b) develop practical guidance. 

Download the slides from a lecture by Dr Lucia D'Ambruoso.

Some news and activities in the area of HPSR by our partner institution - Aga Khan University: 

• Health Policy and Systems Research Group

• New book – “Making Health Systems Work in Low- and Middle Income Countries: Textbook for Public Health Practitioners”, edited by our investigator, Prof Sameen Siddiqi

The qualitative hub brings together our project staff, investigators, institutions and partners working to support qualitative research capacity and its use within lower- and middle-income settings.

Recognising that building capacity should extend beyond the technical skills necessary to conduct research, the Qualitative Hub is placing emphasis on understanding the contexts and building relationships by finding the right balance between coordination of research by the team in the UK and the local ownership of the project in four partner countries.

The South-South engagement and ensuring that the partnership is as equal as possible, are at the core of our capacity building strategy.

We have set up monthly meetings for all country teams to share information, improve collaboration and enable teams to learn from each other's experiences.

News

CEI/Photovoice training in Dubai, UAE, March 2024

In March 2024, we held a training workshop on community engagement, involvement, and dialog (CEID) and a Photovoice as a research method in Dubai, which was attended by the post-doctoral research fellows from four partner countries. This was funded by the University of Birmingham QR fund and facilitated by Justine Davies, Lucia D’Ambruoso, and Agnieszka Ignatowicz.

WP1 training in Kigali, Rwanda, February 2023

The training was co-led by two of our lead postdoctoral researchers, Khaya from South Africa and Derbew from Rwanda. We have developed capacity exchange and training materials, including:

• Web-based material on facilitation of workshops
• podcasts on our researchers' experiences of undertaking work as part of WP1: Global Health from the Global South: Learning and Exchange for Research on Injury Care RSS Feed
• commentary reflecting on lead researchers' personal views and broader debates around equitable research partnerships

Please see our resources webpage for the training materials.

WP1 and WP2 training in Tamale, Ghana, March 2023

Two of our lead postdoctoral researchers in South Africa, Khaya and Tamlyn flew to Tamale to train the Ghanaian team. Great example of multidirectional learning!

The diagram shows the composition of the Capacity Building team's five methodological hubs in a Venn Diagram format:

Venn diagram showing the PIs (Professor Justine Davies and Professor Kathryn Chu) focusing on four countries:

• South Africa (led by Professor Kathryn Chu)
• Ghana (led by Professor Stephen Tabiri)
• Rwanda (led by Professor Jean Claude Byiringiro and Professor Abebe Bekele)
• Pakistan (led by Professor Junaid Razzak).

In South Africa, there is an overlap of two methodological hubs:

• Community Engagement and Involvement (CEI) - led by Dr Christina Laurenzi
• Access to quality injury care - led by Kathryn Chu

In Ghana, there is an overlap of two methodological hubs:

• Access to quality injury care
• Health economics - led by Professor Laura Bojke, University of York

In Rwanda, there is an overlap of two methodological hubs:

• Health economics
• Health systems and policy - led by Professor Sameen Siddiqi

In Pakistan, there is an overlap of two methodological hubs:

• Qualitative - led by Dr Lusia Dambruoso, University of Aberdeen
• CEI.