D3 - Working through partnership to build research leadership capital: strategies, priorities and evaluation in a global context
| Day | Day 2 |
|---|---|
| Code | D3 |
| Start time | 13:40 |
| Room | Hampton |
| Audience |
Supervisors and Principal Investigators
|
| Presenters |
Peter Dukes, Deputy Director, Africa Research Excellence Fund Hazel McCullough, Education and Capacity Building Lead, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Alison Mitchell, Director of Development, Vitae |
Workshop overview:
Systematic investment in researcher and leadership development promises wins for individuals and institutions. But formal programmes are few in Sub-Saharan Africa - even among research-oriented institutions. This workshop will provide a platform for exploring how High Income institutions and initiatives can engage with Low & Middle Income Country (LMIC) partners to support the institutions’ own strategies and achieve lasting benefits.
The workshop will engage participants from different countries and settings. We will present two case studies from a sub-Saharan African context – the AREF Excell[1] and CIRCLE[2] programmes, and include video communication from African research leaders.
Participants will be invited to share experiences and to reflect on the following: LMICs’ distinctive needs for developing researcher and leadership capacity; the role and responsibilities of High Income partners’ research and institutional leaders; what High Income research partners can learn from the experiences of their LMIC partners; what “success” mean in such partnerships; and how to achieve a properly balanced relationship.
Participants will consider how these challenges, opportunities and responsibilities might inform systemic researcher develoment and prepare individual researchers for global research.
During the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to:
- Share their experiences, successes and challenges in research leadership development.
- Hear the perspectives of African participants in the CIRCLE and AREF Excell programmes.
- Compare criteria, frameworks and tools for researcher development applied in different settings.
- Discuss the role of Principal Investigators (PIs) and the Institutional Leaders from High-Income institutions in supporting leadership development in LMIC settings
- Share and compare strategies for developing researcher and research leadership capacity in the context of global research collaborations.
- Identify what may need adapting outside the original setting.
Workshop topics covered:
- Engaging research leaders, principal investigators and supervisors in professional development and nurturing the careers of researchers.
To give direction to the discussion, we aim to address the following key questions:
- What are we learning from UK-style researcher development programmes implemented in Low & Middle Income Countries?
- Are there developmental needs and nuances specific to LMIC settings?
- How transferable are researcher and leadership development tools and criteria developed in the UK to LMIC settings? What needs to be adapted?
- How do High Income leaders best support their LMIC partners to develop their own leadership capacities at both individual and institutional levels?”
Workshop outcomes:
At the end of the Workshop, participants will have had the opportunity to:
- Develop their understanding of similarities, differences and nuances in adapting researcher and leadership development programmes to LMIC settings.
- Understand needs and nuances likely to be specific to LMICs.
- Develop their thinking about the responsibilities and actions of Institutional Leaders and PIs for developing research leadership capacity as part of a well-balanced relationship.
Consider how shared, collegiate insights can impact beneficially on their own institution.
