RESEARCH SUPPORT SYTEM

Background

A research support center RSC was established within the college of health sciences in order to strengthen research activities within the college. The RSC which opened its doors in the beginning of 2011 has provided a platform for faculty and students to obtain the much needed and waited research support services. This was made possible with combined funding from the NIH and welcome trust through the medical education partnership initiative MEPI and southern Africa consortium for research excellence (SACORE) respectively. The collaboration between MEPI and SACORE had resulted in effective coordination of RSC activities.

Vision

To become a centre of excellence in research and grants administration

Mission

To provide comprehensive research support, services to faculty, students and staff of the UZ CHS, the UZ and other institutions

Services

The Research Support Centre RSC has several support services that can be accessed by all students and faculty. It strives to continue strengthening its research support services through networking with external partners. The RSC aims to be a resource to other institutions nationally and regionally.

The following are the major support activities of the RSC:

  • Individual support – assisting researchers in proposal development and implementation
  • Training – research skills development for faculty and students in the form of short courses
  • Grant administration support – pre and post award administrative, financial and project management and support to researchers
  • Research information service – research database, website and newsletter
  • Student support – identification of opportunities for students attachment, research training and conferences, setting up research mentorship schemes and identifying funding for student research
  • Clinical trials support – development of good clinical practice compliant study protocols and instruments for implementation including data management
  • Research governance – strengthen institutional research policies and procedures including grants administration policies and medico-legal policies
  • Research ethics and human research subjects protection training

Establishment of faculty and post graduate database

The RSC has realized the need to have close contact with faculty and students. Thus, a database of faculty and post graduate students has been created for UoN CHS for easier communication and dissemination of research news

Collaboration

Creation of synergies have been created with other training institutions such as Bio-medical research and training institutes ( BRTI) through the international, clinical, operational, and health services research training award (ICOHRTA) in HIV and tuberculosis and the clinical epidemiology resource and training center (CERTC), therefore students and faculty are able to obtain information on training activities from these programs.

RSC Grant administration support

The RSC has initiated a Research Funding Opportunities Digest which is disseminated to all USCHS faculty every fortnight. This Digest carries fellowship opportunities and research funding opportunities. This has been a convenient approach for faculty who are usually very busy to find time to search for research funding announcements. The digest have been very popular to the extent that the RSC has received requests from a partner institute Africa University to include them in our database. Faculties also have the option of requesting funding opportunities related to their area.

In order to facilitate grant application within the college, the RSC has re-activated the electronic research administration (eRA) commons account of UZ-CHS after 2 years of dormancy and to date faculty 8 faculty members have been registered in eRA commons and have also submitted grant applications to NIH and CDC. Four of the grants have been awarded.

RSC small research resources

The RSC is providing small research grant to junior faculty and junior researchers, as part of its effort to stimulate research within the college. Two calls for applications have been circulated and applications are undergoing the pre-selection stage.

RSC NEWSLETTER

The RSC recognizes the need to use different methods for disseminating research news. For this reason the RSC publishes a quarterly newsletter to highlight research news to-date 6 issues have been issued. The newsletter also focuses on fellowship and funding opportunities as well as publications and research activities being carried out by the UZ CHS students and faculty.

RSC grant writing Activities

In addition to assisting faculty and students in grant writing through offering research administration support, the RSC is also submitting grants for its office. Two proposals have been sent to the NIH with the goal to strengthen research administration within the college, one of which has since been funded.

RSC Research Administration Capacity Building

In-house capacity building of research administration staff imperative in order for the RSC to provide a comprehensive research administration support. To this end the RSC provided an opportunity for program staff to attend two research administration workshops. This is in line with the RSC vision to capacitate research administration staff so that they can be experts in research administration and ultimately, offer excellent services to the college.

RSC research fellows

The RSC has a program for PhD, masters and post-doctoral fellows. To date 10 fellows have been recruited; five MPhil, five DPhil. The fellowships provide a stipend and some research funds. SACORE provides support to fellows through funding supervision and mentorship triangle involving academic from the low income (Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe), Middle income (Botswana, South Africa) and high income (U.K) partners, support for supervisors and mentors, short research courses and professional development in research.

RSC training activities

RSC short Courses

Proposal writing workshop

A proposal writing course was held in April 2011 in collaboration with BRTI. The workshop main participants were SACORE and ICOHRTA fellows and scientists from the National Institute of Health research and BRTI.

Post graduate supervision

As part of the RSC professional development activities in research a post graduate supervision workshop was conducted from 16th to 20th May 2011 in Harare. The workshop which was funded by the SACORE project had 30 participants including senior academics from UZ CHS Zambia school of Medicine and junior academics from the UZ.

Research methodology workshop

In order to respond to the need for development of research methodology skills, two research methodology workshops were held in August 2011 and February 2012. The first workshop mainly targeted ICOHRTA and SACORE fellows whilst the second workshop mainly targeted UZ CHS faculty the two workshops which were highly interactive provided an opportunity for fellows to develop and/or refine their research protocol. Research experts and UZ CHS, BRTI and MRCZ facilitated the training.

Ethics in Health research in Africa Training Course

The RSC in collaboration with BRTI through the international, clinical, operational and health services research training Research Training Award (ICOHRTA) for AIDS and tuberculosis conducted an Ethics course in June 2011. The course was designed to provide training in ethics involving human subject of particular relevance to the Africa environment. It was attended by postgraduate students and researchers.

Summary of the short courses

Course / Duration / Number Trained
Postgraduate supervision / 5 days
Basic research Methodology 1 & 2 / 5 days
Proposal writing / 3 days
Research Ethics / 1 day
Research Integrity / 1 day
Evidence based Medicine / 3 days
Grant Writing / 4 days (2hrs sessions daily)
Project Management / 1 day
Data Handling & Biostatistics / 1 day
Supervision & Mentorship / 1 day

Networking

The RSC has established the following new network:

  • National University of Science and Technology and Africa University in research administration through the Zimbabwe initiative on Research and Innovation Management (ZIRIM) award
  • Makerere University of College and Health Sciences – they visited the RSC to share experience in research administration. As a follow up to the visit, the RSC Director was invited to present and facilitate at the Makerere University CHS stakeholders workshop.
  • Center for evidence based healthcare in Africa – they came to facilitate at the Evidence Based Medicine Workshop.
  • University of Botswana – networking links in research administration – The RSC is current assisting with organizing a Southern Africa Research Management Association (SARIMA) workshop in Harare
  • Africa Regional Capacity Development for Health Services and System Research (ARCADE) – which is funded by the European Union and being led by Karolinska Institute
  • Zimbabwe National Blood Transfusion Services – The T-REC project (administrative support with training, supervision and mentorship of Diploma and DPhil students)

MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO RSC ACTIVITIES

Research support team

Principal Investigator (SACORE)
Principal Investigator (MEPI)
RSC Director (SACORE)
RSC Director (SACORE)
RSC Coordinator (MEPI Zimbabwe)
RSC Assistant Coordinator (MEPI Zimbabwe)
RSC Account Clerk (SACORE)
RSC Secretary (SACORE)

Lunch time research Sessions Facilitators

Department of Medicine
Department of Community Medicine
Department of Pediatrics
Department of Radiology
Medical research Council of Zimbabwe
Department of Psychiatry
Department of Medical Laboratory Science

Research methodology

RSC UZCHS
Community Medicine UZCHS
Medicine UZCHS
CEPHI UZCHS
BRTI
MRSCZ

RSC CALENDER

Courses / JAN / FEB / MAR / APR / MAY / JUN / JUL / AUG / SEPT / OCT / NOV / DEC
1. Proposal writing
2. Research Methodology
3. Evidence Based Medicine
4. Project Management
5. Data Handling and Biostatistics
6. Introduction to Epidemiology
7. Research Ethics
8. Introduction to Good Clinical Practices
9. Research Integrity
10. Supervision and Mentorship courses for Students
11. Grant Writing
12. Grant Management
13. Research Leadership
14. Advanced Biostatistics
15. Systematic Reviews
16. Research Ethics

IMPLEMENTATION SCIENCE FELLOWSHIP RESEARCH SCHEDULE

WEEKS & DATE / REVIEW / FACILITATOR
Week 1 / Fundamentals of epidemiology: health indicator
Cover the meaning, calculations and interpretation of type of rates, ratios, standardized mortality rates, incidence and prevalence
Week 2 / Research strategies: getting started:
Choosing and appropriate study design
Covers types of research design used in modern epidemiology (advantages and disadvantages)
Week 3 / Survey and cross sectional studies
Covers the various types of descriptive studies and measurement issues critical to performance of cross sectional study
Week 4 / Cohort/longitudinal
Covers cohort study design (strength and weaknesses)
Week 5 / Case control study
Covers principles of planning, implementation and analysis of case control studies, potential biases, advantages and disadvantages
Week 6 / Cause, risk and bias
Covers meaning, rationale and differences’ between methods of estimating risk
Week 7 / Randomized clinical trials
Covers description of RCT, potential sources of bias and how to critically review papers written to describe RCTs
Week 8 / Qualitative studies
Covers the nature of qualitative research, common qualitative research methods
Week 9 / Critical literature appraisal
Covers how to conduct a detailed critical evaluation of a published journal article
Week 10 / Writing a study proposal
Covers research question, aim, objectives, methodology, research design, ethical issues, work plan and budget
Week 11 / Ethical issues in research
Covers fundamentals research ethics principles, students requirements for approval
Week 12 / Presentation of results, discussion and dissemination
Covers strategies of presentation of results, discussion and analysis

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH METHODS SHEDULE

WEEKS & DATE / TITLE/TOPIC / FACILITATOR
Week 1 / Epidemiology – introduction
Health indicators
Week 2 / Critical literature review
Week 3 / Cohort study
Week 4 / Case Control Study
Week 5 / Cross sectional study
Week 6 / Qualitative study
Week 7 / Questionnaire Design
Week 8 / Introduction to research ethics
Week 9 / Sampling, sample size
Week 10 / Advance Epidemiology measure of Effect confounding
Week 11 / Effect of Modification Bias and Minimizing Bias
Week 12 / Design and Conduct of Clinical Trials
Week 13 / Good Clinical Practices
Week 14 / Defining Objective and hypothesis
Week 15 / Proposal Write-up

RESEARCH SUPPORT COURSE OUTLINE

Supervision and mentorship

  • The purpose of postgraduate study
  • Problems and issues
  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Helping the student to write a research proposal
  • Helping the students to select topic and title
  • Helping the student manage the process
  • Preparing for examination of thesis and the viva
  • Preparing journal publication from PhD
  • Establish a “culture” for postgraduate study (including funding source)

Proposal writing: An Introductory Course

  • Identification and prioritization of research problems
  • Analysis and formulation of the statement of the problem
  • Literature review
  • Formulation of research objective
  • Variables
  • Study types
  • Sample and selecting bias
  • Confounding
  • Data collection techniques
  • Work plan
  • Budget
  • Plan for data processing and analysis
  • Some hints on writing a grant winning proposal
  • Introduction to good research practices

Research Methodology Workshop

  • Research theory and cross discipline research
  • Literature search
  • Analysis and writing of statement of the problem
  • Defining research questions and objectives
  • Selecting study design, variables, outcomes measures and study population
  • Sample strategies and sample size calculation
  • Qualitative and quantitative study methods and design of tools (questionnaire, CRFs, FGD guides)
  • Data handling and statistics
  • Introduction to research ethics and good research practices
  • Project management
  • Introduction to good research practices and GCP
  • Presentation skills

Ethics in Health Research in Africa

  • What is ethics in research?
  • Research involving human subject
  • Informed consent
  • Risk, harms and benefits
  • Ethics committees (structure and function)
  • Institutional review boards
  • Ethics and data management
  • Ethical issues in the laboratory