News & Updates

October 2022 Edition, Issue 58

Happy new month! Welcome to another edition of the CARTA monthly updates. Read on to keep abreast with what is new.

Pathways to Gender Equity in Research Capacity Building: CARTA session at the 22nd Gender Summit

On October 17, CARTA team led by Dr. Evelyne Gitau, Director of Research and Related Capacity Strengthening at APHRC had a fruitful morning meeting with the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nairobi (UoN), Prof. Stephen Kiama. The team comprised Dr. Florah Karimi - Program Manager, Dr. Cavens Kithinji - Program Coordinator, Ann Waithaka - Communications Officer, and the CARTA focal person at UoN, Dr. Anne Khasakhala. They engaged the VC on CARTA activities across the African continent and the CARTA-UoN Portfolio.

Of the current 225 fellows, there are 27 CARTA fellows (12 have graduated) employed at UoN at point of CARTA registration, and 33 CARTA fellows (17 have graduated) registered for PhD programs collectively from UoN and other CARTA partner universities. The VC pledged the University’s support in strengthening the CARTA-UoN collaboration, to act on the feedback provided by the CARTA team on UoN’s performance within the program and in research, and to strengthen UoN’s position as one of the 8 CARTA African partner universities.

The Joint Advanced Seminar three (JAS 3) commenced on October 10, 2022. The first phase of the training is two weeks of virtual training which will be followed by a residential stay at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria from November 6 - 26 2022.

During the training, 17 cohort 10 fellows will be capacitated on data presentation, the doctoral dissertation, scientific writing, and communication skills to facilitate results dissemination and policy engagement.

Skye Adams

Skye (cohort 9) and Aurore (cohort 7) have successfully completed their PhD studies and are set to graduate on December 12, 2022 from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Aurore Nishimwe

Omotade Ijarotimi (cohort 10 fellow) has been promoted to Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology by the Appointments and Promotions Committee of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

Samuel Mwaniki (cohort 8 fellow, University of Nairobi) made a poster presentation at the 2022 Global Health Conference that was held in South Africa between October 28 - 30. His topic was ‘what if I get sick, where shall I go?: a qualitative investigation of healthcare engagement among young gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (YMSM) in Nairobi, Kenya'. The conference was organized by Stellenbosch University and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.

Alexander Kagaha (cohort 7 graduate, Makerere University) held his first postdoctoral seminar on the theme 'Global Health Inequality in the Age of Reason' on October 27 at the Gothenburg University School of Public Health and Community Medicine.

Alamukii Abiket (cohort 9 fellow, University of Ibadan) presented an abstract titled ‘the use of TNF-alpha polymorphic forms as a possible risk assessment tool for the management of breast cancer among Nigerian women’ from her PhD work at the 2022 American Society for Human Genetics conference. The conference was held between October 25 - 29 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Jepchirchir Kiplagat (cohort 4, Moi University) participated in a book launch event at Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging, Hunters College in New York on October 12. She also presented her Fogarty Fellowship work as a virtual poster at the SU-CUGH Global Health hybrid conference that took place from October 22 - 30.

Valens Mbarushimana (cohort 6 fellow, University of Rwanda) presented an abstract on ‘sexual and reproductive health: informing policy and practice through research and pre-service training’ at the Center for International Reproductive Health Training (CIRHT) International Conference. The conference took place in Kigali, Rwanda on October 5-7, 2022. Valens was awarded a certificate and a prize for the best e-poster presentation during the event.

Kudus launches the LEMIC project

On Monday, October 17, 2022, the Lived Experiences of Migrating Informal Caregivers in a Tertiary Health Facility: Understanding and action for health systems improvement in Nigeria (LEMIC) Project was flagged off with an inception and familiarisation meeting. The meeting was held at the Oladele Ajose Building, Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

LEMIC is funded to the tune of $50,000 by CARTA through the program’s re-entry grants. The project team comprises the PI Dr. Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo (cohort 6 graduate, University of Ibadan), a Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, and Dr. Mofeyisara Omobowale (co-PI) of the Institute of Child Health. Read more

The CARTA SHINE projects hold its thrid stakeholder meeting

The CARTA Sexual Harassment in Nigerian Educational Institutions (CARTA SHINE) project is a research study seeking to determine the prevalence and factors associated with sexual harassment (SH) in Nigerian tertiary institutions and to explore the lived experiences of individuals who have experienced SH. The project kicked off activities in September 2022 under the leadership of the PI Dr. Boladale Mapayi (cohort 4 graduate, Obafemi Awolowo University). 

On October 6, the project held the third stakeholder meeting in Ibadan with discussions centering on the need for training for research assistants, students, and staff to know what to do when a survivor opens up to them. In attendance were representatives from the Directorate of Student Affairs, the Student Union Government, the Gender mainstreaming office, researchers, and members of the antisexual harassment committee. Learn more about the project and its activities here.

Olivia at the Queen Mary University

Olivia Osiro (cohort 6 graduate, University of Nairobi) is presently attending a short research visit at Queen Mary University of London as part of her research project from a CARTA re-entry grant. The project seeks to develop low-cost ionomer-type dental fillings.

Pictured: Olivia during her visit at the Dental Physical Sciences Unit, Institute of Dentistry, Barts with her external mentor, Prof Robert Hill.

APHRC convenes discourse on global health inequalities

Global health is currently high on the international political agenda, with international fora such as the UNGA World Health Summit and the Health Systems Global, playing an important role.

Sadly, limited representation from the Global South, especially from Africa, and the lack of access to global conversations on public health underline these gross inequalities. 

On October 31, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) convened participants from across the globe in a hybrid setup to discuss Anti-Blackness in Global Health Webinar. Watch the recording here.

ASUU suspends 8-month strike

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nigeria has suspended its eight-month-old industrial action. The decision was taken at the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the ASUU in Abuja, effective October 14, 2022. Since February 2022, a majority of state-owned universities embarked on a nationwide strike that has severely affected access and quality of education. The suspension of the strike is thus a big relief with most universities now resuming learning including CARTA’s partner institutions - the University of Ibadan and the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.  

Call for input: Digital innovation, technologies and the right to health

Within the framework of Human Rights Council resolution 42/16, the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, has identified digital innovation, technologies and the right to health as one of her priorities during her tenure (See A/HRC/47/28 paras 78-86). In compliance with her mandate and in line with this priority, she has decided to devote her next thematic report to the Human Rights Council, to be held in June 2023, to this theme. The report will focus on factors that need attention to achieve equitable digital health, which include accessibility, affordability, acceptability, and quality, among others. In this regard, input/comments are sought from the public. Details

Deadline: November 15, 2022

Call for proposals: Producing a limited podcast series on embedded implementation research in health policy and systems research

The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research invites proposals from a partnership between health communications experts and public health researchers to produce, host and distribute a limited podcast series on the topic of embedded implementation research for the Alliance. The five-episode series will involve working closely with the Alliance to define the format and select interviewees. Marketing of the limited series will be prepared by the team on behalf of the Alliance. This is not a research call. Download call

Deadline: November 21, 2022

Call for proposals: Implementation research for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases

The World Health Organization (WHO) Noncommunicable Disease Department and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research invite proposals for implementation research that addresses integrated service delivery for the prevention and management of NCDs in low- or middle-income countries (LMICs). This call is tailored to the needs of implementers in LMICs, to support their desire to conduct implementation research, to address implementation bottlenecks, and ultimately sustainably scale-up NCD care. The Principal Investigator (PI) must be a researcher based in a research institution in an LMIC. Priority will be given to countries engaged in existing capacity-strengthening activities for NCD-related implementation research (Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Myanmar, and Nepal). Other LMIC countries will be considered based on strength of the proposal and funding opportunities. Download call

Deadline: November 30, 2022

Call for proposals: Health policy analysis for health taxes

This call for proposals is for up to eight country case studies examining how political economy factors influence the design, adoption, and implementation of health taxes at national or sub-national levels. Informed by qualitative data from key country stakeholders, research teams will develop analytical case studies based on a common conceptual framework. Principal Investigators must be based in an LMIC research institution, but special priority will be given to the following countries: Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Paraguay, the United Republic of Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Uganda, Ukraine, and Zambia. The case study proposed should be about one of the above countries. Download call

Deadline: December, 23 2022

Call for Proposals: Global Humanities Institutes 2024

The Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes invites proposals for Global Humanities Institutes to take place in 2024. Global Humanities Institutes (GHIs) are multi-year projects devoted to a research theme, method, practice, or problem in the humanities that will benefit directly from a sustained international and collaborative approach. Teams of scholars representing three or four humanities centers, preferably located in at least three different world regions, to develop a research program that is a model for inclusive collaboration in the humanities and addresses matters that are of compelling importance today. With generous support from the Mellon Foundation, we expect to fund two institutes at the level of $200,000 each. Details

Deadline: December 15, 2022

Call for abstracts: 19th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists

The 19th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES19) will take place in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, from 4-6 September 2023. The conference theme – Shaping the Future – will offer examples of and insights for women studying and working in STEM (science, engineering, technology, and mathematics), and their advocates, and showcase the potential of science and engineering to change the world for the better. Women from around the world are invited to submit their work – from fundamental research projects to examples of how science and engineering are being applied in the real world - to be considered for the program. Details

Deadline: December 9, 2022

Call for papers: Hunger, food sovereignty, and public health

This Call relates to the 5th Latin American Public Health Meeting taking place in August 2023 in Cali, Colombia. The best article award competition will take place before the meeting. This Call for Papers seeks to collect studies that show the tensions between food shortages and overproduction, the right to food, and public health. We are interested in receiving original articles and reviews on these topics: transformations in agriculture and its relationship with food dependency and hunger; public health-related practices and effects of food industries; the role of self-sustaining food production practices and their relationship with public health; agrarian policies, organizations and social struggle; and people, peasants, various ancestral forms of agriculture and hunger IJPH publishes gold open access. Details

Deadline: December 15, 2022

Funding: Research advancing social sciences and humanities

The Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation) is announcing a USD million-dollar program to fund research to advance the fields of social sciences and humanities in Africa and to enable the production of evidence to inform sustainable development in Africa. The SFA Foundation’s Preparing Outstanding Social Science Investigators to Benefit Lives and Environments in Africa Programme (POSSIBLE-Africa) is a two-year program implemented with philanthropic support from Carnegie Corporation of New York. POSSIBLE-Africa will support up to 25 African postdoctoral fellowships increasing the number of scholars contributing solutions to challenges facing Africa and the world. Details

Deadline: December 11, 2022

Funding: Research and development of new and preferred contraceptives

The Science for Africa (SFA) Foundation is funding the research and development of new contraceptives that are easy to access and use.The funding call, ‘Strengthening Contraceptive Research and Development (R&D) Ecosystem in Africa: Accelerating Innovations in Non-Hormonal Contraception for Women’ will run over a period of two years through the SFA Foundation’s Grand Challenges Africa (GC Africa) program. SFA Foundation partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will aim to provide up to $350,000 to multidisciplinary consortia consisting of 2-3 researchers preferably based in the same institution to develop novel non-hormonal contraceptives that are safe, effective, easy-to-access, discreet, convenient, do not contain sex steroid hormones or rely on hormonal mechanisms and do not disrupt menstrual patterns. Details

Deadline: December 16, 2022

Applications to join the AlignMNH Steering Committee

The AlignMNH Secretariat is excited to announce an open call for applications to join the 2023-2025 AlignMNH Steering Committee. The new Steering Committee cohort will begin following the IMNHC 2023 and will serve a two-year term through May 2025. The selection of new Steering Committee Members will consider the composition of the Steering Committee as a whole, prioritizing a balance of regional representation, gender, technical expertise, and diversity of experience (ranging from NGOs, advocacy, government, clinical, research/academia, and others). Details 

Deadline: November 30, 2022

Opportunity for collaboration on a new mental health initiative for young people

Being is an international mental health initiative, working toward a world where young people feel well and thrive. Being is currently looking for researchers, groups, or organizations based in low- and middle-income countries to support the initiative for up to one year (2023-2024). Those selected will analyze local information on young people’s mental health and well-being and lead stakeholder and network engagement to scope opportunities for investment and collaboration in one or more of 13 priority countries – Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, India (with a focus on Odisha and/or Rajasthan states), Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Vietnam. Details

Deadline: November 17, 2022

IARC postdoctoral fellowships for training in cancer research

This call is both for IARC postdoctoral fellows in any fitting area of cancer research, as well as for two specific fellows for cancer research in children, teenagers, and young adults. The fellowships are tenable at IARC and are for a period of two years. Only nationals from Low- and Middle-Income Country (LMICs) are eligible for this call. Candidates are required to have finished their doctoral degree within five years of the closing date for application or must be in the final year of their doctoral degree. The working languages at IARC are English and French. Candidates must be proficient in English at a level sufficient for scientific communication. Details

Deadline: December 16, 2022

Short course: Write your paper based on demographic and health survey (DHS) data on reproductive and child health

The purpose of this course is to support researchers in analyzing DHS data, focusing on sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health. Every participant is expected to pursue their key analysis idea and conduct data analysis under the guidance of the course coaches. Participants are exposed to the topics and questions of others in the course to expand their insights. The objective is to have an advanced draft of a publishable research paper by the end of the course and to submit the manuscript to a scientific journal within a month of course completion. Details

Deadline: December 16, 2022

Global South Climate Database

The Global South Climate Database is a publicly available, searchable database of scientists and experts in the fields of climate science, policy, and energy. The project, set up by Carbon Brief with the support of the Reuters Institute’s Oxford Climate Journalism Network, aims to ensure that journalists from all over the world can contact climate experts from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Pacific. The database lists each person’s area of expertise, institutional affiliation, contact details, and other relevant information. The experts cover many different languages from around the world, but all speak English too. You can use the search bar to filter by research expertise, nationality, institution, pronouns, etc. Access database

Share with us news and updates such as upcoming events, meetings, story ideas, new collaborations, new trials/updates, upcoming and published papers, policy briefs, community engagement activities, scholarships, what you are reading, if you won a grant, attending or about an upcoming conference, a call for applications/funding/papers, etc.

To be featured in the next CARTA news and updates, send an email to cartacomms@cartafrica.org before October 20, 2022

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