Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research With Purpose Academy (SRA): Building Interdisciplinary Research Capacity and Leadership

Despite being disproportionately burdened by preventable diseases than more advanced countries, low- and middle-income countries continue to trail behind other parts of the world in the number, quality and impact of research output. The future of development is in research, hence, the need for strong research ecosystems that could yield innovations and technologies to address challenges facing the continent. Slum and Rural Health Initiative Research for Purpose Academy was created to build interdisciplinary research and leadership capacity of early career researchers in Nigeria for sustainable development and greater research output. The data for this abstract was culled from participants registration information, Google scholar, participants progress report, research participation and management tracker. This was analyzed using SPSS version 25. A total of 162 individuals participated in the SRHIN Research With Purpose Academy (SRA) over the past 4 years.. Most (95%) of the members were less than 40 years of age. Many (57.8%) were females and majority had never published a research paper. The research expertise ranking pre-training showed that 22.4% were novice, 52.8% were beginners and 14.3% were basic researchers. The post- training impact assessment revealed that one hundred and thirty-five papers (135) have been published with over 776 citations. Seven (7) SRA members had solely authored research papers, fifty-seven (57) research papers were published by SRA members only, seventy-eight (78) papers were published by SRA members in collaboration with non-SRA members, thirty (34) members were currently employed in different research capacity, and twelve (12) members were serving in research leadership positions. As highlighted in the results, every effort put into research capacity building yields maximum results. Therefore, there needs to be more investment in research – that will help to fund local research projects, infrastructure and capacity-building for local researchers. It is high time Africa looked inwards to locally-led and run research initiatives.