Wednesday 25 March 2015

Proposal Development Workshop for Early- to Mid-Career African Scientists

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, July 13-16, 2015

Introduction
The Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) is a joint initiative of the African Academy of Sciences and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).  This initiative is also established in partnership with three major funders, namely, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Wellcome trust t and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). 
AESA is a funding, strategy and think tank platform that will support research in Africa.  The initial focus of the platform is in health sciences, although with time, other areas of priority concern, such as Food and Nutrition, Agriculture, Energy, etc. will be addressed. This project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges team.   Grand Challenges is a family of grant programs fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems for those most in need. Grand Challenges partners, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, USAID’s Grand Challenges for Development, Grand Challenges Brazil, and Grand Challenges India are all guided by the following set of principles: 
  • Strategic and well-articulated grand challenges serve both to focus research efforts and to capture the imagination and engage the world’s best researchers.
  • Projects are selected based on public, transparent calls for proposals seeking the best ideas.
  • Funders, investigators, and other stakeholders actively collaborate to accelerate progress and integrate advances to ensure these advances serve those most in need.
  • Projects are selected not only for scientific excellence, but also for their likelihood to achieve the desired impact, and they are milestone driven and actively managed to that end
  • Projects and investigators make global access commitments to ensure the fruits of their research are available to those most in need.
To date the Grand Challenges partners have collectively made over 1600 grants in 80 countries.  The Gates Foundation is interested in continuing to increase the quality of good applications that comes into it’s Grand Challenges pipeline of ideas. 
To this end, the AAS is planning to organize two proposal development workshop in 2015, the first of these workshops will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July 2015, in collaboration with the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS). 

Background and Rationale
One notable limitation to research output in Africa is the low quality of proposals submitted by early and mid-career scientists from African research centers and universities. Few of these end up attracting funding with a success rate of less than 20%. The majority get dismissed, not because they are lacking in scientific relevance but because they fail to meet required standards set by the granting organizations in terms of rationale, approach, resources requested, or they simply fail to convince the reviewers. Thus the major aim of these workshops are to impart knowledge on key principles of writing grant winning proposals and thereby improve the quality of proposals. 
Specifically, participants will also be inducted on the principles, requirements and formats of various applications, including Grand Challenges applications.  Additional communication skill training will be given with the goal of equipping applicants with compelling story telling skills.  Trainers and facilitators chosen from among AAS and EAS Fellows, BMGF staff and other experts will serve as resource persons for these workshops. The workshop intends to attract and encourage the best minds in Africa who are working in areas of public health and development.  It is hoped workshops and other measures will make substantial contributions to improve the quality of applications coming from African institutions.

Objectives and expected outcomes
The workshop’s aim is to:
· Train a new cadre of African Scientists on proposal development techniques and prepare them to respond to any competitive Request for Proposals globally
· Boost capacity of African scientists in competing for research grants
· Raise research quality and output in Africa

Methodology and target group
Participation to the workshop will be selected from across the continent based on qualifications, experience, research interests and support from home institution.  Scientists who are newly qualified as PhDs, are working as post-doctoral scientists, or are in mid-career (less than 5 years since PhD qualification) are particularly encouraged to apply The scope of the workshops will focus on compelling story telling; walking through the grant making process; tips and tricks from mentors; grant management and project implementation. This will be delivered over three days in the form of plenary, interactive and parallel breakout sessions.

Applications: 
Applications are invited from interested scientists who may benefit from participation in this workshop. Applicants are required to fill the attached form and send to:
African Academy of Sciences, Email: workshop@aasciences.org; Tel: +254 725 290 145.

Deadline for Application is 20 April 2015 at 5pm East Africa Time
Please visit the link below for more details:


Wednesday 18 March 2015

2nd Conference for Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa Fellows held in Nairobi, Kenya



Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) today held a conference for its Cohort 2 Fellows for them to present papers from research that they have been conducting during the fellowship program. 

CARTA Fellows conference provides an opportunity for the Fellows to present their research findings to a wide audience drawn from different academic fields. This helps fulfil the vision of CARTA of building a vibrant African academy that is able to lead world-class multidisciplinary research that makes a positive impact on public and population health. 

Held at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya, alongside the ongoing Joint Advanced Seminars (JAS) trainings for Fellows, this year’s conference was the second one since the inception of the program. This conference was attended by an audience drawn from different faculties in different institutions, with different research interest as regards research on health. Researchers from the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) and other partner institutions implementing the CARTA program were also part of the conference attendees.

The papers presented at the conference were on different areas of health ranging from non-communicable to communicable diseases; others on HIV, Family Planning, Food Security, malaria, health of the aging, environmental health related issues and knowledge, attitudes and practices as concerns health. 

Longwe Herbert Hudson Thulasoni Cohort 2 CARTA Fellow gives a presentation on his research he has been conducting in Malawi

“The wide variety of issues being addressed by the Fellows as was witnessed through their presentations is a true reflection of the depth and breadth of the program,” said Chima Izugbara, Director of Research and Capacity Strengthening Division at APHRC.

Some of the findings coming from the conference included;
  • Risk reduction interventions are required to minimize unplanned pregnancies, STIs and HIV transmission by HIV+ adolescents.
  • The fact that communities perceive Post Abortion Care (PAC) positively suggests the possibility of its acceptance and increased uptake in settings where abortion victims are stigmatized like in Tanzania thus recommending for its availability at all levels of health facility.
  • Gender differentials exist in self-reported ill health among older persons in Uganda.
  • Brucellosis is a significant and neglected public health problem among human population living in livestock keeping and the risk is being aggravated by consumption of unpasteurized milk products. There is a need to initiate screening and early treatment of infected humans. Also, awareness of the public about brucellosis needs to be established especially on risk factors.
  • Rate of uptake of Modern Contraceptive (MC) is generally low. Both never and ever married women should be encouraged to uptake modern contraceptives.
  • There is a need for programs aimed at reducing food insecurity among the urban poor and investment in the education of the slum households may, in the long term, contribute to reduction in the prevalence of food insecurity.
This breadth is a confirmation of CARTA’s aims to foster vibrant and viable multidisciplinary research hubs at African universities and creating locally-trained internationally- recognized researchers on areas of health and population in Africa.
University of Nairobi, Moi University, Kenyatta University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, United States International University and Daystar University are some of the institutions from which a section of the conference participants were drawn. 


Conference participants following proceedings
“The conference was very informative. I loved so much the medical related presentations. They were well researched and used current data and information. The presentations are generally well researched. I would not mind being part of such a conference anytime it is held,” remarked Judith Otele Karimi at the end of the conference. Judith is an epidemiologist coming from Daystar University and is the Quality Assurance and Benefits officer with the National Hospital and Insurance Fund in Kenya.

Cohort 5 CARTA Fellows and facilitators of the training sessions at the ongoing JAS sessions were also in attendance.