Young Researcher Grants Programme
A call for proposals issued in 2004 attracted more than 50 applications across the world.
Proposals were reviewed and the Alliance selected 10 institutions from 10 countries in low and middle income countries.
The evaluation revealed that 9 out of 10 grantee institutions have successfully implemented the one-year project and have identified areas for further strengthening HPSR in their teaching programmes. The Alliance therefore decided to give further support to each of the successful grantees to implement Phase II of the project.
The list of the postgraduate teaching institutions (Phase II) can be found on the following link.
Further to the success of the programme, the Alliance decided to issue a second call for proposal in 2006.
A list of successful grantees can be found on the following link.
Description of the evaluation of the project
The grantees were evaluated by a mid-term progress report, a site visit by Ashok Yesudian, the Alliance's former Manager and a grantee meeting in Mumbai before Forum 9 in September 2005.
The evaluation brought out the following findings:
- The Alliance support has strengthened HPSR in the curriculum of the postgraduate degree programmes.
- Students' interests to choose health system topics for dissertation has increased.
- The Alliance support to the dissertation has intensified the field work for research.
- More students are able to complete their dissertation on time because of the financial support and other incentives.
- The Alliance project has stimulated the students to disseminate their research findings through publication and in conferences.
Apart from the benefits of the grant, areas for improvement have been identified:
- Dissertation supervision was found to be week. Young faculty members need to carry out more research to strengthen their research skills to provide effective supervision to students.
- The quality of data was found to be poor. There is a need for a field supervisor to help the student to collect quality data.
- Student and faculty interface with decision makers was found to be weak. The decision maker should be involved from the beginning to identify priority health system topics, which will have value for the decision maker.
- Dissemination of the research findings in conferences and publication was found to be inadequate. Students need technical and financial support to publish and present in conferences.
- In some programmes, the HPSR curriculum is still weak and the content focuses mainly on research methodology. The Alliance Collaborative Training Programme Resource Modules can be used to strengthen the HPSR curriculum.