Promoting grantsmanship and effective management of clinical trials to advance malaria research

On 8th January 2024, WANETAM commenced a week-long Malaria Grant Writing and Clinical Trials Management Workshop, organised in collaboration with the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) at the University of Ghana. Bringing together 20 early postdoctoral fellows from 6 West African countries, the workshop enhanced participants’ skills in competitive grantsmanship and is expected to boost the capacities of participants’ institutions in community-based cluster randomised trials and management.
Speaking at the start of the workshop, Professor Dorothy Yeboah-Manu, Director of NMIMR and deputy lead of WANETAM’s tuberculosis work package mentioned that “the workshop is an opportunity for networking and collaboration among fellows from different West African countries. It fosters shared learning, avails new opportunities and resources and promotes joint applications for research funding.”
For Professor Alfred Amambua-Ngwa, MRC Investigator in Genetic Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM and the network’s malaria work package lead, the workshop is aimed at improving malaria research grantsmanship for early and developing career malaria scientists in West Africa.
According to Dr. Olusola Ajibaye, a malaria genomics and immunogenetics researcher at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, the potential impact of workshop on his research career is significant, as the workshop has demystified the complex process and requirements for successful NIH, EDCTP, MRC and Wellcome Trust grants applications for his and other participants. “The workshop will invigorate and impact, not only my career, but careers of all WANETAM postdoctoral fellows and our mentees in our various institutions back home” he said.
Recognising that early career African researchers becoming research leaders and research solution providers largely depends on grants acquisition and research development, this workshop is part of the malaria work package’s activities to strengthening research capacity around the disease and promote learning, exchange and collaboration in malaria research and grantsmanship.