Training and Capacity Building

Aim

This additional component aims to support long-term research sustainability, by strengthening capacity in local research staff and community members involved in CEI, by providing an extensive range of training courses.

Planned Activities

Training and capacity building activities will commence in each country with a training needs assessment exercise to determine what oral health research training is currently delivered, the strengths and weaknesses of current training provision, and the identification of any major gaps in research training.
Based upon the findings of the training needs assessment, a tailored programme of short research methods courses will be developed and run in each partner country. The courses will be advertised and offered to early career oral health researchers in each partner country. In addition to face-to-face courses, a selection of online training resources will be developed for dental researchers in each country.
One day training events will be developed and offered to community members as an introduction to research on oral health and linked to the community engagement and involvement activities.
An online research mentoring programme will be developed and run in each country to provide individual training support and, research career guidance for junior researchers. The training coordinators in each country would be responsible for matching the early career researchers with an experienced mentor based either locally, or in another LMIC partner country or in the UK.
Four training posts will be created (one post for each country) to enable suitable oral health researchers to study for the MSc in Dental Public Health at UCL (2 scholarships) and University of Glasgow (2 scholarships).
The training and capacity building component of this programme is being led by Professor Manu Mathur (Queen Mary University of London) and Professor David Conway (University of Glasgow, Scotland).