Promoting sustainable research partnerships: a mixed-method evaluation of a United Kingdom–Africa capacity strengthening award scheme

Survey findings

The survey link was emailed to a total of 43 award holders, of which 53% (n?=?23)
responded. Of these, 61% (n?=?14) were the African partner (Table 1). Survey data are presented under two key areas – continuing collaborations and benefits
of the partnership which includes research outputs.

Table 1. Participant characteristics: cross sectional survey

Continuing collaborations

Survey data provided information about the likelihood of continuing collaboration
as assessed by the participants as a result of this award. The majority of United
Kingdom award holders (77.8%, n?=?7) and African award holders (78.6%, n?=?11) stated
they would like to pursue future collaborations together. As evidence of this commitment,
survey data showed that the majority of award holders had already investigated their
next collaborative funding opportunity (Tables 2 and 3). It highlighted that international funding bodies were the most appealing, particularly
to the African partner, with 78.6% (n?=?11) of these respondents stating that they
are likely to pursue this as a future funding source.

Table 2. Collaborative research outputs of award holders since successful application

Table 3. Potential for future collaborations and the perceived benefits from present collaboration

Benefits of the partnership

Survey data quantified the personal benefits of participating in research partnerships,
specifically the opportunity to produce research outputs. These are outlined in Table 3 and include publications, conference presentations and being awarded future grants.
The majority of conference presentations and paper publications resulting from the
award were achieved in conjunction with the collaborating partner. Conversely, the
majority of additional grants awarded had been achieved independently of the collaborative
partner (Table 2). Specifically, only three of the additional nine grants gained by awardees since
receiving the award had been received collaboratively, three were obtained independently
by the African partner and the remaining three were obtained independently by the
United Kingdom partner. Participants also identified other financial income as a result
of the partnership as a key benefit; 44% (n?=?4) of United Kingdom award holders and
35.7% (n?=?5) of African award holders mentioned receiving funds outside of the grant
from a United Kingdom institution as a benefit of the award. As well as institutional
benefits in the form of finance, survey data also revealed that United Kingdom award
holders (55%, n?=?5) and African award holders (57.1%, n?=?8) considered sharing laboratory
space and research equipment as a collaborative benefit.

Qualitative findings

In total, 42 people participated in semi-structured interviews or FGDs from 12 different
institutions (Table 4), including PIs, Co-PIs, research assistants, students and laboratory scientists.
We identified four main themes through the analysis using the Framework approach.
These relate to factors that could influence the nature, the outputs, or the sustainability
of the partnerships.

Table 4. Participant characteristics: site visits

Collaborative benefits and career progression

During interviews and FGDs, the majority of West and East African researchers identified
benefits of the partnership to both themselves and their students, such as the learning
and teaching they received from the United Kingdom partners. In FGDs, some students
also identified this as beneficial:

“With the partnership I think it is so far so good because a professor from the UK
has been involved in several training sessions on this campus each time that he came….
So, so far the partnership has been good and beneficial to us as students….I think
as early-stage researchers this opportunity has been one of the best opportunities
that we have probably ever had or I have ever had.” (West African Masters Student, Female, Under 25).

“For capacity building we have a number of trainings going on and our students and
junior staff will benefit from the training that we are going to offer…it’s really
just knowledge transfer I think that’s going to be very successful.” (East African PI, Male, 36–45).

The ability to produce papers and present at conferences as a result of the award
was also cited as a key individual benefit and a key contribution to individual career
progression:

“…we have to be able to write papers and this is one of the benefits. This can be used
for our promotion.” (West African PI, Female, 56–65).

At the institutional level, institute leaders and award PI’s felt that working with
a United Kingdom partner and the prestige of the award benefitted their institutions’
reputation. They also felt that the prestige of the award allowed them to engage more
senior staff within the institution. They perceived that this had a positive influence
on capacity strengthening activities as these staff members were often key institutional
decision makers:

“…. it gives them the institutional recognition that somebody has this award and this
is prestigious so that is important…. so it creates a culture of people who can apply
and get grants.” (West African PI, Male, Age 36–45).

Participants from the United Kingdom and the African institutions both perceived that
the benefits of the award scheme accrued primarily for the African partner. Some of
the United Kingdom PIs we spoke to felt they had also benefitted from participating
in the partnership, especially the experience of working in LMICs, but the majority
tended to identify contributions they had made to the African partner and institution:

“[I was] able to contribute to a larger proposal as I had partnerships in place and I could
use this [LMIC] experience to receive other awards.” (United Kingdom PI, Female, 46–55).

Research culture

In some cases, the critical elements needed to strengthen ‘research culture’ at institutions
(i.e. protected time for research, types of learning pedagogies, training in research
methods, journal clubs) were lacking, and participants described the impact of this
on achieving effective partnerships and high quality outputs as it was “often hard to find people who are even committed to research post Masters” (United Kingdom PI, Female, 36–45). However, several United Kingdom PI’s recognised
that the partnership had enabled them to begin to support junior researchers towards
independence, but acknowledged this takes time and requires institutions to invest
more in strengthening research culture:

“When you go to [XXXX] meetings it focuses on scientific excellence….You cannot change the whole philosophy
of an institution can just plant that seed and hopefully some of those will continue
to be associated with you and your research. It has to be an organic thing from within.
The Director is very enlightened and has those ideas in his head. Try to reach maximum
number of students. How do they go on to become independent researchers? Few become
independent researchers, but I’m sure we’ve had an impact. But we need to expand that,
through this or other African funding. It is really worth continuing as the real impact
is in the continuation to change research cultures and philosophy.” (United Kingdom PI, Female, 46–55).

Impact on ‘research culture’ was described as being most noticeable when mid-level
post-doctoral researchers were involved in partnerships, since they had time to invest
in the research process as well as the energy and motivation to influence change at
the institutional level. The PI’s and co-PI’s we spoke to believed there were increasing
numbers of ‘home-grown’ post-doctoral researchers who needed support and encouragement.
It was perceived that engaging them in award schemes such as this had a positive impact
on research culture through exposure to international collaboration and funding opportunities,
as well as opportunity to develop project expertise and confidence to produce scientific
outputs:

“I know what it is like when research is not paramount, it can stall growth and it
contributes to brain drain, post-doctoral culture is growing so it is important we
encourage dialogue with them.” (United Kingdom PI, Female, 46–55).

“I’ve nearly always found that the higher level people are the pains to work with but
actually the middle level people are the ones who have the umph to get past the base
level but haven’t got to the higher levels are usually the ones who can be the most
dynamic and put the most effort into it.” (United Kingdom PI, Female, 46–55).

Partnership functionality and sustainability

When asked what had made partnerships effective (i.e. function as a partnership) some
participants identified communication as a key factor. Key markers of effectiveness
were described to participants as joint idea development, joint decision making and
joint research outputs. All the postgraduate students we interviewed felt that regular
interaction and communication with the United Kingdom partner assisted them in development
of learning. Consequently, when communication was ineffective, it was perceived as
having detrimental impact on the collaboration:

“The scientific work has been okay, communication has not been good, [and] this is not the best in terms of collaborating with other partners. There has been
a lack of response as in you send emails and you don’t get any response and that sort
of thing and then they come back and say they’re sorry but I just think that they
are all excuses … It all has to do with communication. I would say [X] is a very good scientist, but the communication could have been better. I think that
is the key thing in terms of collaboration and communication. The way we share data,
it all comes back down to communication.” (West African PI, Male, 46–55).

Some PI’s and co-PI’s and other researchers involved in the award felt that more important
than communication to achieving effective authentic partnerships, was the way in which
the partnership was formed. Most of these participants believed that pre-existing
relationships between partners, such as a former PhD supervisor-student relationship,
often resulted in more successful project outcomes:

“…well for the PI in the UK we have known for two years and each year they will be here
doing work or training programs with us. …. I think the partnership has been really,
really fantastic. So I think that that is good.” (West African Researcher, Male, 25–35).

“The UK PI, Prof [X], trained me, I was his Ph.D. student so I worked with him for five years no sorry
for four years…it was smooth and swift, because this is my work I sat down and invented
it kind of, and then I was able to convince him to come on board using techniques
that he had taught me so it made the transition swift and it has been easy. We talk
as scientists at that level where when no one has thought about the other because
the thing is it’s just a suggestion and there is no ‘no no no’. We don’t have that.” (West African Researcher, Male, 36–45).

Award holders interviewed reported that they would like to pursue future collaborations
together and they had already investigated their next collaborative funding opportunity:

“There is a proposal about bio-char [being developed] so we are in touch about that.” (East African PI, Female, 56–65).

Equitable partnerships

The PIs and researchers we interviewed stressed the importance of equity between partners
and the influence this had on research outputs, partnership benefits and the potential
for future collaborations. Some reported that when partners entered the project with
differing assumptions about, for example, the research content and focus, the administration
of funds, or procurement process the effect on the partnership was debilitating. Sometimes,
a lack of knowledge about the research context in LMICs was a barrier to effective
working within a partnership:

“…so what [X] was saying you see, [X] has her style of working of course it is different than what we are used to doing.
We said we don’t take credit cards here the system for procurement at the university;
we have to follow the procedures which are allowed but [X] say we don’t know and we should learn how to use credit cards…So this is the problems
we have and of course there is not much progress in this context in terms of achievements.” (East African PI, Male, 46–55).

“…there wasn’t any money for overheads, we weren’t allowed to charge any overheads
whatsoever, so I had to create a negotiation with the institution and eventually I
did pay 5% which I thought was the least but I had to support it with money from elsewhere
because the [X] itself did not allow us to charge any overheads whatsoever for administering, which
you need for such a grants, you need someone to help to keep all the records. So that
is the bits that I would say could be improved.” (West African PI, Male, 46–55).

The administrative staff we spoke to who were engaged with the award highlighted administrative
aspects of award management, such as where funds were held as underlying factors in
creating inequitable partnerships. They explained that despite the majority of the
money (50–70%) being spent in the African countries, the African institutions had
limited or no autonomy in relation to when and how funds were spent. Several PI’s
and Co-PI’s and administrative award staff identified that allowing the African partner
to have more financial control would create more equitable partnerships. They also
felt that this would reduce delays associated with international bank transfers, and
complex administrative processes between the United Kingdom and African partners.
Some researchers described having to use existing grants to finance initial activities
in the award scheme, because of delays in transfer of funds from the United Kingdom:

“…the only problem we have had is that we still don’t have the actual money hit our
account yet but because we have other grants I’ve been able to support the work…I
would suggest that 20% of the money is made directly…[to] the African researchers [they] can have some start-up money… and then the UK partners can handle the bulk of the
money because you have seen what I’m going through because I’ve if I didn’t have another
grant we wouldn’t be able to do anything.” (West African Researcher, Male, 36–45).

Participants said they tended to encounter problems in achieving equitable partnerships
when the partnership was new, and no prior collaboration had taken place. Several
participants felt that inequity was more likely to occur when United Kingdom based
partners had no or limited experience of carrying out research in LMICs:

‘I do think it helps if you have worked in LMICs even if it is not in [East African country] directly. Just that understanding that things don’t work the same as they do here
is really beneficial, I am not saying that it should be restricted to those sorts
of people because that’s not fair because people can adjust and they can learn….I
don’t really know how to prepare people for that though, other than perhaps talking
to somebody who has done it, that’s probably the only useful thing.” (United Kingdom PI, Female, 46–55)