Advancing Research Ethics Training in Southern Africa (ARESA): Leadership Program

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PROJECT SUMMARY LMIC: South Africa Institution: Stellenbosch University, Cape Town The Advancing Research Ethics training in Southern Africa (ARESA) program has promoted the responsible conduct of research in southern Africa by graduating 40 mid-career professionals with a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Research Ethics and by developing a national network for Research Ethics Committee (REC) members (REASA) from 2011 to 2016. The Centre for Medical Ethics and Law at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and the Centre for Bioethics, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA will strengthen and expand local and regional African capacity using the foundation in research ethics built by the ARESA program by developing the ARESA Leadership Program. This program will create a sustainable critical mass of bioethics scholars in LMIC research intensive institutions at the highest level. This new program will incorporate a doctoral program in clinical and research ethics and will offer a constellation of didactic, mentored research and career development components to enable trainees to conduct original empirical or conceptual ethics research to address challenging issues in heath research and research policy in LMICs. Trainees will be individually developed and mentored to become independent bioethics scholars, educators in bioethics, leaders in ethical review of research and experts in clinical and research ethics consultation in their institutions, governments and international research organizations. Five Southern African trainees will be selected to participate in an intensive and interactive training program in clinical and research ethics over 3 to 5 years at the Stellenbosch University Centre for Medical Ethics where they will be exposed to research ethics committee deliberations and clinical ethics committee deliberations. The training will include a research stay at UNC-Chapel Hill and they will complete a doctoral dissertation as a final output of the training. To enhance bioethics leadership capacity trainees will be individually mentored by ARESA faculty to develop technical and professional skills in qualitative and quantitative research methodology, to become proficient in manuscript preparation for publication and grant-writing, and to develop a package of bioethics training materials to be used at their home institutions. To expand research ethics capacity nationally and internationally, trainees will contribute as co-editors on the ARESA newsletter online, assume responsibility for the organization of an annual ARESA conference in Cape Town, and actively participate in the Research Ethics Committee Association of Southern Africa (REASA).