Workshop-based learning and networking: a scalable model for research capacity strengthening in low- and middle-income countries

Abstract

Science education and research have the potential to drive profound change in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through encouraging innovation, attracting industry, and creating job opportunities. However, in LMICs, research capacity is often limited, and acquisition of funding and access to state-of-the-art technologies is challenging. The Alliance for Global Health and Science (the Alliance) was founded as a partnership between the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and Makerere University (Uganda), with the goal of strengthening Makerere University's capacity for bioscience research. The flagship program of the Alliance partnership is the MU/UCB Biosciences Training Program, an in-country, hands-on workshop model that trains a large number of students from Makerere University in infectious disease and molecular biology research. This approach nucleates training of larger and more diverse groups of students, development of mentoring and bi-directional research partnerships, and support of the local economy. Here, we describe the project, its conception, implementation, challenges, and outcomes of bioscience research workshops. We aim to provide a blueprint for workshop implementation, and create a valuable resource for bioscience research capacity strengthening in LMICs.

Keywords: Africa; Capacity strengthening; Uganda; infectious diseases; research.

Figure 1.

Roadmap of the MU/UCB biosciences training program implementation. Involvement of local staff, students and faculty in every phase of the Biosciences Training Program, from planning to follow-up. **All items are repackaged on pallets and shipped to Uganda using World Courier – one shipment for room temperature supplies and one refrigerated shipment. Close coordination with MU receiving department ensures that customs are efficiently cleared and no reagents are lost to insufficient cooling. Average shipment times are 5 to 7 days, and a buffer period between receipt of reagent shipment of one month has to be built in to be able to send another shipment if reagents are lost due to issues with the cold chain. 

Figure 2.

Overall satisfaction with workshops and instructors. Responses were collected on a five-point Likert scale: 1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree. Data represent the average ratings from the answers to the questions related to overall organization and instruction quality of the workshop.

Figure 3.

Knowledge acquisition. Mean self-reported answer to the questions concerning acquirement of knowledge of survey respondents (n = 69).

Figure 4.

Survey one-year post-workshop. mean self-reported research experience after the workshops of survey respondents (50% response rate).

Figure 5.

The MU/UCB Biosciences training program generated essential collaborations. A) Covid-19 testing at MU: how an existing network could accelerate its implementation. On 21 March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Uganda, from a young adult who had been traveling back from Dubai [29]. On March 22nd, UC Berkeley’s Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases asked: what can we do to help our Ugandan colleagues deal with Covid-19? Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, like Uganda, are extremely susceptible to becoming ravished by the pandemic due to communal living conditions, high population density, and limited hospital capacity and infrastructure – Uganda only has 55 functioning ICU beds, for a population of more than 40 million people [30]. On April 30th, MU was approved by the Ministry of Health to run Covid-19 testing for patient care [31]. B) MU scientists and frontline workers at the molecular biology lab on the college health sciences campus, wearing the PPE provided by CEND.