Increase individual capacity | Improve institutional capacity | Enhance organisational capacity | |
---|---|---|---|
Increase supply of policy-relevant research | None as the focus of the funding call was on the ‘demand-side’ of the research-to-policy continuum and not the ‘supply-side’ | ||
Enhance capacity of policy-makers to source and use research | 1. Train MoH technical staff in sourcing, appraising, synthesising and applying evidence in decision-making (5-day residential workshop) 2. Mentor and support-trained MoH staff in applying knowledge and skills acquired from the workshop above over 12-months (one-on-one monthly follow-ups, and 1-day refresher workshops every quarter) | 1. Sustained advocacy with MoH top leaders on EIDM (one-on-one meetings with leaders, and annual national and regional forums with leaders on research-to-policy) to increase awareness on the important role of evidence in decision-making, and need to address institutional barriers to evidence use 2. Develop guidelines for evidence use 3. Develop health research agenda in Kenya 4. Review health research agenda in Malawi 5. Support MoHs to revive their defunct libraries, improve Internet connectivity, and subscribe to freely available databases such as Hinari | None as our intervention was resource-limited and could therefore not focus on developing broader organisational capacities |
Increase networking among policy-makers and researchers | 6. Support MoH research departments to introduce regular science-policy cafés to discuss research on urgent health issues; cafés were conducted every 6 months; 8 cafés in Kenya, 5 in Malawi |