The Research Administration and Management Programme (RAMP) training was jointly hosted by the Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research Zimbabwe (CeSHHAR Zimbabwe) and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) as part of the 2023 Early Career Researcher and Innovator (ECRI) Conference. The training was aimed at strengthening collaboration and skills for research and innovation.
The training which was for 5 days, from 24 to 28 October 2023, was held at Cresta Hotel in the City of Harare, Zimbabwe.
Project Managers, Finance Specialists, and Administrators were the main target group for the RAMP training which focused on several key areas including the International Multidisciplinary Programme to Address Lung Health and TB in Africa (IMPALA) Programme, NIHR discussion on contracting and intellectual property management within research and Nature Medicine discussion on publication impact: how journals are processed, stages, eligibility and what type of journals are accepted. Participants from the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme (MLW) were Patience Korea, Evelyn Kossam, Evance Mtikama, and Ulemu Mbvundula. The Project Manager of the Public Health Theme at MLW Luke Banda was part of the training team.
Apart from equipping these research support professionals with tools for conducting their work and models that are applicable in research contexts, the training was also important in several ways including the participants learning from each other’s project experiences and skills, understanding challenges and enablers that institutions outside UK experience surrounding contracting and intellectual property (IP), networking and embracing cultural exchange.
Administrator for the STRATAA Study Evelyn Kossam said the training was vibrant with real project life examples and discussions from presentations such as those by Mark Taylor on contracting and intellectual property management within research and Chief Editor at Nature Medicine Joao Monteiro on publication impact.
One of the facilitators of the training Martina Savio said, “It is important for the participants to have a culture of knowing every activity in a project to be able to offer help.”
Savio also advised those who are not tasked to submit proposals and ethics guidelines to learn how to do it to advise the right ways if something goes wrong.
The next RAMP training is being planned for Malawi in the first quarter of 2024.
