How can collaborative research be used to drive social impact? A presentation as a panelist at the Society for Social Medicine's Early Career Researcher Workshop 2020

1. Building research partnerships for
public health impact
• Dr. Ebele Mogo
• Researcher, GDAR Network, University of Cambridge
• Founder, Engage Africa Foundation
• Principal, ERIM Consulting

2. About me
• Nigerian – shaped my lens, my relationship to the work I do, and what a fulfilling career looks
like to me
• Researcher at the MRC Epidemiology Unit of the University of Cambridge - developing and
managing ongoing work projects to understand rapidly urbanizing Caribbean and African
contexts and how to change them in order to reduce the risk for chronic diseases.
• Formerly post-doctoral researcher at McGill University Faculty of Medicine - Implementation
research focused on improving the wellbeing of Canadian children with disabilities.
• Founder of Engage Africa Foundation - a pan-African network on mission to advocate for
people-centred solutions that put health at the center of development in Africa, in light of the
rise of non-communicable diseases.
• Principal of ERIM Consulting - Provide technical and partnership building expertise for global
public health projects spanning governments, academia, UN organizations, venture
funded startups and civil society.

3. This article was published 20 years ago
- Move beyond biomedical approach to
upstream prevention
- Create a coherent multi-sector strategy
that addresses the socioeconomic and
commercial drivers of disease
How many people have died from NCDs since then?
Key takeaways remain the same

4. Prompt
• Think about your own research
• Do the key takeaways from the earliest
articles on your topic differ substantially
from current takeaways?
• Considering that most of what you are
studying may have been known for a
while, how can your research contribute
to impact?

5. Why Should
(Public Health)
Research Aim to
Be Impactful?
• In public health, the research has implications for
people’s lives and wellbeing
• Each behavioural risk factor we study is in the context of
it commercial, cultural and political drivers
• Passive research is not enough – the contexts have to
change to create an impact
• We have a responsibility to the communities we engage
with – we are using funding and resources
• My lived experience as an African woman has shaped
my perspective on research
• It is not just data to me – it is my parent’s generation,
my generation and future generations
• This gives me an impatience for impact
• But also a humility – understand that lives are so much
more complex and missions to drive change must be
humble

6. The passive research lifecycle
• Researchers agree on innovative and important “research” topic
• Get funding and approval to proceed
• Collect “evidence”
• Connect with the community to disseminate the research (start thinking of collaboration here)
• Publish “output”
• Get career perks
• Repeat

7. The lifecycle of passive research creates
an extractive knowledge economy
• Researchers agree on innovative and important “research” topic (Who defines the scope of the problem?)
• Get funding or approval to proceed (Does the approval of the community matter?)
• Collect “evidence” (What is evidence? What is the gap between your methodology and the lived realities?)
• Connect with the community to disseminate the research (Are communities passive recipients of work done for them?)
• Publish “output” (Who reads these papers behind paywalls? Is it fair for communities to have to pay to access the work
you involved them in?)
• Get career perks (What happens to the career progression of researchers spending time engaging? What value is ascribed
to the communities’ expertise?)
• Repeat (erodes trust)

8. From extractive knowledge to value-adding knowledge
• Researchers agree on innovative and important “research” topic (AND the shape of the knowledge needed
with key community stakeholders. Collaboration starts here)
• Get funding or approval to proceed (AND get the approval of those who understand the context)
• Collect “evidence” (AND tailor research methodologies, timelines and output to be appropriate to the goals of
the research project and the needs of your stakeholders)
• Connect with the community to disseminate the research (If you have co-created a project, dissemination is
not the first point of engagement)
• Publish “output” (AND go beyond academic papers to the appropriate means for your audience. Augment the
knowledge of the community rather than extracting it)
• Get career perks (with norms and incentives that value the work of building sustained collaborations as against
papers alone)
• Repeat

9. Example of laying the
groundwork for
collaborative research:
RICHE Africa Workshop
on Multisectoral Action
For Health in Africa
• Workshop with practitioners and decisionmakers to share experiences and build
relationships and capacity
• Systematic review on multi-sectoral action for health in urban Africa
• Explored participants interests before (survey), during (Mentimeter) and after to make
the workshop worthwhile
• Tailored evidence to their needs
• Shared relevant promising practices from across the continent
• Transformed key issues and statistics into stories
• Had participants share ideas of solutions based on their expertise
• Built capacity for collaborative research
• Explored what kind of research would be valuable to them

10. Example of ”evidence”: Dialogues on
healthy and inclusive development in
Canada at the McGill University
Faculty of Medicine
• Stakeholder consultations with grassroots organization
to understand what frameworks mattered to them,
and what aspects of the framework were worth
prioritizing
• The use of rapid reviews
• Policy tools and digital tools all tailored to the needs of
stakeholders
• The use of local statistics (to localize the data gained)
• The integration of the lived experiences of children
with disabilities in their own words (to contextualize)
• The sharing of data on Canadian policy commitments
(to make a claim for action)
• Involved community groups as co-researchers

11. Example: Engage Africa
Foundation’s COVID-19
Translation Project

12. Example of
“output”:
Engage Africa
Foundation’s
COVID-19
Translation
Project
• Translate WHO preventive guidelines on COVID-
19 into 19 African languages
• A digital collaboration over the course of 3-4
weeks
• Call on social media
• Building a group and processes to collaborate
digitally
• Existing framework – WHO messaging
• My positionality as an African and my existing
relationships
• Capital – time, knowledge, expertise, leadership
skills, existing relationships, cultural sensitivity
• Work to agree on the scope – languages,
graphics, site creation, quality control, and
means to disseminate
• Co-authorship

13. Key takeaways on
collaboration
• A more comprehensive view of the lifecycle of research
• Collaboration is not the last thing you do but one of the first
• Understanding your stakeholders. What kind of knowledge and output could be useful to
them? What challenges do they face? What is *their* priority? What issues are
contested?
• Understand local windows of opportunity – policy being ratified, good or bad news that
leads to renewed media attention, change of government
• Value local assets and agency – co-authorship, long-term engagement, relationship
building, who is already doing the work that can be a part of what you want to do?
• Have intentional engagements in bringing people together
• Read the room. Understand your positionality and theirs
• Always ask – who needs to be here that is not? Equity
• Keep learning especially from mistakes

14. That said…
• Nurturing collaborations is vital yet invisible work – work of long-term relationship
building, decoding cultural nuances etc., and can turn into extra and unremunerated
work for researchers with the transcultural expertise, oftentimes people from already
underserved communities, already underpaid trainees, etc.
• Therefore, it is also important to approach this topic of partners from a lens of
enabling ecosystems where such work is adequately valued rather than individual
responsibility alone

15. What kind of
ecosystems will
incentivize a
research
pipeline that
supports long-
term
collaboration
• Resources that embed researchers within institutions
for policy making and program implementation: e.g.
the Canadian Institute for Health Research’s Health
Systems Impact Fellowships, Ghana’s Community-
based Health Planning and Services
• Funding models and training to ensure the building
long-term and respectful relationships is valued
• Incentives that reward researchers for the full scope
of value and not just academic papers e.g. the
University of Toronto’s Creative Professional
Activities

16. Recommended
Reading
• Shaping Research to Create More Social Impact
• Using a rapid review process to engage stakeholders,
inform policy and set priorities for promoting
physical activity and leisure participation for children
with disabilities in British Columbia
• Human Resources for Global Health, a book chapter
in the Handbook for Global Health
• The website of Engage Africa Foundation

17. Contact
information
• Email: ebele.mogo@mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk