Adapting operational research training to the Rwandan context: the Intermediate Operational Research Training programme

Abstract

Background: Promoting national health research agendas in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) requires adequate numbers of individuals with skills to initiate and conduct research. Recently, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have joined research capacity building efforts to increase research leadership by LMIC nationals. Partners In Health, an international NGO operating in Rwanda, implemented its first Intermediate Operational Research Training (IORT) course to cultivate Rwandan research talent and generate evidence to improve health care delivery. Objective: This paper describes the implementation of IORT to share experiences with other organizations interested in developing similar training programmes. Methods: The Intermediate Operational Research Training utilized a deliverable-driven training model, using learning-by-doing pedagogy with intensive hands-on mentorship to build research skills from protocol development to scientific publication. The course had short (two-day) but frequent training sessions (seven sessions over eight months). Trainees were clinical and programme staff working at the district level who were paired to jointly lead a research project. Results: Of 10 trainees admitted to the course from a pool of 24 applicants, nine trainees completed the course with five research projects published in peer-reviewed journals. Strengths of the course included supportive national and institutional research capacity guidelines, building from a successful training model, and trainee commitment. Challenges included delays in ethical review, high mentorship workload of up to 250 hours of practicum mentorship, lack of access to literature in subscription journals and high costs of open access publication. Conclusions: The IORT course was an effective way to support the district-based government and NGO staff in gaining research skills, as well as answering research questions relevant to health service delivery at district hospitals. Other NGOs should build on successful programmes while adapting course elements to address context-specific challenges. Mentorship for LMIC trainees is critical for effectiveness of research capacity building initiatives.

Building sustainable operational research capacity in Pakistan: starting with tuberculosis and expanding to other public health problems

“…Due to limited funding, national SORT IT courses have been run with federal level facilitators resulting in a high workload while more involvement of provincial trained facilitators could resolve this issue. The availability of high quality and skilled mentorship/facilitation is an ongoing challenge not only for Pakistan but elsewhere as well [15,16]. Women represent of low share of participants because of less women enrolment as public health professional in public health sector in Pakistan.…”

“…In 2009, a research unit at the National TB Programme (NTP) was developed and became fully functional with the aim of designing and conducting locally relevant operational research. In 2012, the Pakistan NTP research team chief was trained as a researcher in a PhD program that included operational research at one of the international SORT IT Courses in Paris 2010, where she learnt about the philosophy of sustainable operational research around national priorities with a view to improving programme performance (14)(15)(16)(17). Following this training, several operational research projects were undertaken in Pakistan around missing TB cases, private sector engagement and active case finding [9][10][11][12][13].…”

Operational research within a Global Fund supported tuberculosis project in India: why, how and its contribution towards change in policy and practice

“…The cause of this disparity remains unclear and is an area that requires attention. A recent publication from Rwanda describing the experiences from one OR training course with nine participants (five OR studies) shows how adopting the structured OR training programmes to the local context, with continuous mentoring support from protocol development to scientific publication has resulted in adequate capacity building and completion of research projects in across the country [63]. …”

Growing research in global surgery with an eye towards equity

“…The PIH/R Research Department has developed even more stringent guidelines, with specificity on the balance of Rwandan representation in research projects and expectations that projects grow Rwandan collaborators' capacity for research. In addition, the PIH/R Research Department initiated a comprehensive research training programme in 2012, which includes offerings ranging from an Introduction to Research training course, providing a broad exposure to research concepts, to sending colleagues for advanced degrees. Overall, this research capacity‐building programme has been valuable for improved research projects outputs in that: projects can leverage the skills and expertise developed in these trainings; and projects can use these trainings to develop their teams when they do not have the resources to lead their own capacity‐building activities.…”

“…Many of the PIH/R research trainings are ‘deliverable driven’, where trainees immediately apply research concepts to a Rwanda‐based research project. The most prominent example of this type of training is the Intermediate Operational Research Training (IORT): a year‐long idea‐to‐paper course. Over three 1‐week training modules, participants learn skills in developing a research protocol (week 1), conducting statistical analyses (week 2) and writing a research paper (week 3), culminating in a peer‐reviewed publication.…”