The overall goal of this proposed training program is to build research administration and management capacity in AIDS research centers in South Africa and Zambia initially and extending thereafter to include Nigeria and Kenya. The Center for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) aims to both 1) use the experience it has gained in the management of grants to provide training and develop the capacity of other AIDS research organisations within South Africa and Zambia, and 2) to strengthen its own research administration and management capabilities. Within Zambia, this program will prioritise CAPRISA?s well-established AIDS research collaboration with the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). The training program will offer both long-term higher degrees opportunities aimed specifically at building research administration leadership at CAPRISA and CIDRZ, as well as short-term training through workshops in grant writing and grant administration aimed at research administrators and young investigators. In addition, the program will include internships for research administrators in CAPRISA?s grants and contracts and financial departments, followed by twinning for ongoing mentorship in grants administration. The training will cover all aspects of grants administration, but will prioritise grant application processes, project management, grant and financial reporting, compliance with funder?s requirements such as retention of records, financial accountability, and the development and implementation of standard operating procedures for tracking grant expenditure. Competent and effective research administration, with emerging new leaders, will enable AIDS research centers in South Africa and Zambia, including CAPRISA and CIDRZ, to improve their research administration and management services provided to researchers to enable to them to increase their high impact AIDS research. The impact of this capacity building initiative will be assessed through the number of researchers and research administrators trained, proportion of on-time grant reports and success rate of new grant applications by CAPRISA and CIDRZ. In the long-term, the impact of this training program will be monitored by the number of articles in high impact journals.
This program is a critical training resource for strengthening research administration and management capacity in AIDS research centers in South Africa and Zambia to enable researchers to increase their high impact AIDS research.
