Dr Cristina Santos

This new project is supported by the ESRC under the GCRF Inclusive Societies initiative. It aims to demonstrate the benefits for inclusive development of linking local industrial and social innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It will do this by addressing the “hard case” of increasing access to cancer care in East Africa.

Initial research to develop an outline paper which will inform an Education Workforce Report for policy-makers which will give a high level summary of recent evidence; lessons from other sectors; in depth case studies of how effective education workforce reform or innovative approaches have been implemented and their enabling factors; a revised vision for the role of the teacher and other education professionals; implications of this vision on workforce design. Under the guidance of the Chair and Vice Chairs of the working group, the lead research organization will assume primary responsibility for the following deliverables and activities: 1. Building on existing work, synthesize the latest thinking on the relevant education outcomes an education system needs to achieve in a developing economy, for example 21st century skills. 2. Drawing on research and analysis already undertaken for the Commission, provide a brief overview of the challenges that needs to addressed, underpinned by specific education workforce data where possible 3. Building on research already undertaken for the Commission, undertake a rapid review of current evidence by priority of what works and identify good practice and examples of country level reform and innovative programmes that could be used as case studies, in order to learn from the experience of how new approaches have been implemented. Include suggestions from the working group and advisory group. 4. Produce a synthesis of lessons on workforce reform from other sectors including health, business and public sector reform, taking into account relevant thinking on leadership, management and organizational change. 5. Finalise priorities and scope for EWI to ensure a distinct value-add is provided, narrowing the focus if necessary to provide sufficient depth 6. Produce an outline paper to synthesise the background research and propose the approach and methodology for the case study research, the outline for the Education Workforce Report and how this will inter-relate with the working group discussions. 7. Support the discussion of this paper at the first Working Group. 8. Incorporate comments from the Working Group and Advisory Group and finalise the paper.

We will establish the first consortium to focus systematically on building evidence and community practice to tackle comorbidity between mental illness and other long-term conditions (LTCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Such comorbidity is increasing rapidly and presents a major challenge to SSA health care provision. Community-based interventions appear to be an efficacious response to this problem. However evidence to support this is still weak, especially in SSA. This proposal builds on our existing collaborations which have begun to examine the scope for inclusive and affordable community practice to tackle such comorbidities (Lloyd et al., 2015; Meddenhall et al., 2017). This proposal will build a sustainable research network of African and UK researchers to: 1. Generate a greater shared understanding of existing research on the interrelationships between mental health and other LTCs and the role of community engagement in SSA in tackling the challenge; 2. Identify gaps in current research and practice in different SSA countries from a range of disciplinary perspectives and experience; 3. Develop methodologies for combining research and practice to create and evaluate partnerships with communities for problem identification, decision-making and shared actions for prevention, treatment and management of comorbid mental and physical LTCs; 4. Develop and submit research proposals based on these methodologies; 5. Support the development and training of novice/early career researchers from SSA; 6. Create low cost-effective networking among a new strong and sustainable African network with UK partners for a long term impact in health research.