Increasing collaborative research output between early-career healthresearchers in Africa: lessons from the CARTA fellowship program.
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Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Global Health Action
Abstract
In 2008 nine African Universities and four African research institutions, in partnership withnon-African institutions started the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa(CARTA) to strengthen doctoral training and research capacity on health in Africa. Thisstudy describes particular aspects of the CARTA program that promotes collaborationbetween the PhD fellows in the program, and determines the patterns of collaborativepublications that resulted from the intervention. We reviewed program monitoring andevaluation documents and conducted a bibliometric analysis of 806 peer-reviewed publica-tions by CARTA fellows published between 2011 and 2018. Results indicate that recruitingmultidisciplinary fellows from various institutions, encouraging registration of doctoral-levelfellows outside home institutions, and organizing joint research seminars stimulated colla-borative research on health-related topics. Fellows collaborated among themselves and withnon-CARTA researchers. Fellows co-authored 75 papers (10%) between themselves, of which53 (71%) and 42 (56%) included fellows of different cohorts and different disciplines respec-tively, and 19 (25%) involved fellows of different institutions. CARTA graduates continued topublish with each other after graduating – 11% of the collaborative publications occurredpost-graduation – indicating that the collaborative approach was maintained after exitingfrom the program. However, not all fellows contributed to publishing collaborative papers.The study recommends concerted effort towards enhancing collaborative publicationsamong the CARTA fellows, both doctoral and post-doctoral, which can include holdingresearch exchange forums and collaborative grant-writing workshops
Description
Journal Article
Keywords
Collaborative publications, networks, doctoralintervention, post-doctoralintervention, Africa
Citation
Uwizeye, D., Karimi, F. K., Otukpa, E., Ngware, M. W., Wao, H., Igumbor, J. O., & Fonn, S. (2020). Increasing collaborative research output between early-career healthresearchers in Africa: lessons from the CARTA fellowship program. Global Health Action