NEWS

MOOC ON IMPLEMENTATION RESEARCH 2021

Implementation research (IR) can make a significant contribution to the improvement of disease control intervention delivery. There is growing interest in enhancing IR training through courses or workshops that allow participants to put their newly acquired skills into practice. TDR intended to pilot the incorporation of a research grant into the MOOC training course in order to enable participants who had written strong research letters of intent to put their research ideas into action. The RTC-UGM, with support from TDR, hosted a MOOC session for WHO/SEAR countries in the second half of May to the end of July 2021. The final assignment for the MOOC was a Letter of Intent for a research project on implementation. A peer-review process was used to determine the top twenty Letters of Intent developed at the conclusion of the MOOC for a research project on NTDs. The external reviewer selected the ten best participants to receive a “MOOC Grant” to conduct the research project following a competitive external evaluation of these 20 letters of intent. The ten selected grantees implemented an IR project in their respective country between mid-September and the end of December 2021, using the grant awarded. A mentoring workshop and sessions were held for grantees to work with their assigned mentor on developing a comprehensive internal research proposal. Prior to the conclusion of their project, grantees submitted a mid-term progress report in mid-November, followed by another series of mentoring sessions with their respective mentor. Despite a slight delay by Nepalese grantee, all grantees completed their IR projects and submitted their final reports by the first week of January 2022.