Executive summary

Connecting Health Research in Africa and Ireland Consortium (CHRAIC)

Researchers from three Irish institutions, six African countries and one non-governmental organisation (NGO) comprise a long-term partnership for capacity building for pro-poor health research in Africa.  Funding for the first five years of the Programme is from Irish Aid, Ireland’s development assistance programme, through Ireland’s Higher Education Authority (HEA), and increasingly from the Irish institutions involved.

• The Irish researchers are from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) [1], Trinity College Dublin (TCD), the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG).
• The African researchers are from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda.  The Malaria Consortium’s main headquarters is in the UK and its main Africa office is in Uganda.
• The Council for Health Research for Development (www.COHRED.org), which has unique expertise in research capacity building, and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (www.alliance-hpsr.org), which focuses on research prioritisation and research into policy processes, are both advisers to the Programme.

Programme aims:

To summarise existing research and knowledge gaps on health systems’ capacity to deliver interventions for the the main health oriented Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); fund and train five PhD students; assess and strengthen the partners’ research capacity; conduct Irish Aid-relevant research; and strengthen research into policy links.

Specific activities:

Phase 1 (May 2008 to July 2009):

(1) All partners participated in a Dublin workshop (June 2008) to agree plans for collating, summarising and synthesising existing research findings and knowledge gaps.  Results from the reviews and synthesis are to be presented in the Uganda workshop in April 2009.

(2) A taught course has been developed for the ChRAIC PhD programme.  Five PhD studentships in total will be funded from the Programme for the academic years 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. Existing research modules have been used, with some adaptation, from the Health Research Board PhD Scholars programme (http://www.rcsi.ie/index.jsp?1nID=93&2nID=107&pID=197&nID=964) and the Masters in Global Health at TCD (http://www.medicine.tcd.ie/global-health/postgraduate/msc/). Some new training modules have been designed, in particular the Social Determinants of Health in NUIG.  Modules, which are ChRAIC-specific, will subsequently be adapted and made available to all partners on an electronic intranet.

(3) Preliminary partner research capacity assessments to identify: (a) capacity-strengthening needs; and (b) ‘good fits’ – by discipline, experience and research interest – for research teams to address priority questions will commence in this phase.

Phase 2 (August 2009 to March 2013):

(4) Uganda workshop (April 2009) where Programme partners, plus representatives of relevant national (ministry of health) and global policy makers will:

• Review and agree mechanisms for finalising Phase 1 drafts and research into policy processes
• Determine research priorities for Phase 2 research
• Review preliminary research capacity assessments and recommend capacity strengthening priorities

(5) Strengthen partner-capacity through: (a) doctoral training; (b) access to on-line courses and (c) joint research studies.

(6) Attract additional research funds for PhD studentships and research projects.

Programme Themes

The primary Irish Aid thematic priorities to be addressed are Health, and the components of HIV/AIDS control that rely directly on effective functioning health systems, especially clinical care, including anti-retroviral treatment (ART), and preventive interventions.  The Programme approach is framed within Irish Aid’s Health Policy. Improving Health to Reduce Poverty. Irish Aid, February 2007, on which was based the December 2006 Programme of Strategic Cooperation, 2007-11.  Our Programme focus will be on the production of new and country context-specific knowledge on:

• How to “strengthen health systems to serve the poor more effectively” (Objective 2, Irish Aid Health Policy.); and
• The optimal configuration of health services and identification of effective “health strategies that meet the needs of the poor and marginalised” (Objective 3).

The Programme focus will include the main priorities of the Taoiseach’s Initiative on HIV/AIDS and Communicable Diseases (applicants from each of the Irish institutions in this consortium sit on the Technical Advisory Group to the Taoiseach’s Initiative).  We propose a thematic health systems framework, as illustrated below, which draws on the relevant MDGs, framing these within cross-cutting components of the health system:

Thematic health systems framework

This systems framework draws on our (Irish and African HEI) track-records and a growing body of research evidence that is emerging through our North-South and South-South partnerships.  These three components or dimensions of the health system are keys to the effectiveness of these systems in meeting the needs of the poor.  They will provide a focus or lens for selecting and synthesising relevant research on the health and HIV/AIDS MDGs (4, 5 and 6) in Phase 1 of the Programme.

[1] Lead applicant: Professor Ruairí Brugha, RCSI, rbrugha@rcsi.ie.  Contact person Programme Coordinator:  Dr Elaine Byrne, RCSI, elainebyrne2@rcsi.ie.