STRENGTHENING RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION INFRASTRUCTURE AT AFRICA UNIVERSITY, ZIMBABWE

 描述(申请人提供)：位于津巴布韦的非洲大学(AU)致力于成为卓越的研究中心和研究领导者，为领导力发展以及社会和经济转型贡献知识创造和知识传播。该项目旨在加强非盟的研究管理基础设施，以帮助研究人员成功地争取国际资金，开展急需的研究，以解决津巴布韦面临的许多健康问题。目前，非洲大学的生物医学和生物行为研究产出很低。缺乏对研究人员的赠款管理和其他支持被认为是一个促成因素。该项目建议开发最近成立的非盟研究和外联方案办公室(OROP)，使其充分发挥作用和富有成效，以满足非盟研究界的需求。该项目提出了一项发展非洲大学OROP领导层和工作人员在研究管理各个方面的能力的计划。这将导致提供一个用户友好的中央研究办公室，由合格的、积极的干部领导和配备工作人员，以支持和激励感兴趣的非盟教职员工、学生和工作人员提高研究生产率。该项目为OROP提出了一项具有成本效益的创新人员配置计划。然后是一个两级能力建设计划，在该计划中，研究管理负责人最初在许多领域接受培训，包括NIH政策和流程，然后他们反过来将他们本可以获得的知识和技能传授给OROP工作人员。将使用各种培训方法，包括实习、正式认证课程、研讨会、讲习班、电子课程、交流访问。导师将由在研究管理方面经验丰富的领导提供。OROP工作人员将反过来在关键领域支持和培训非盟研究人员，包括制定研究提案、执行和管理赠款、报告和手稿写作。最终目标是增加非盟的研究产出，特别是外部资助的大型研究。这将产生收入，反过来将维持OROP，使其能够为研究人员提供更专业的服务。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Africa University (AU) in Zimbabwe strives to be a center of research excellence and a research leader, contributing to knowledge generation and knowledge dissemination for leadership development, and for social and economic transformation. This project seeks to strengthen the research administration infrastructure at AU, in order to assist researchers to successfully compete for international funding to carry out the much needed research to solve the many health problems that Zimbabwe is facing. Currently the biomedical and biobehavioural research output at Africa University is low. Lack of grants management and other support for researchers is thought to be a contributory factor. This project proposes to develop the recently established AU Office of Research and Outreach Programs (OROP) to make it fully functional and productive to serve the needs of the AU research community. The project proposes a plan to develop the capacity of Africa University OROP leadership and staff in various aspects of research administration. This will result in the availability of a user-friendly central research office that is led and staffed by well qualified ad motivated cadres to support and motivate interested AU faculty, students and staff to move to the next level of productivity in research. The project proposes an innovative cost-effective staffing plan for the OROP. Then a two-tiered capacity building plan where initially the research administration leaders are trained in many areas, including NIH policies and processes, then they in turn pass on the knowledge and skills they would have acquired to the OROP staff. A variety of training methods will be used, including internships, formal certified courses, seminars, workshops, e-lessons, exchange visits. Mentoring will be provided by well-experienced leaders in research administration. The OROP staff will in turn support and train AU researchers on key areas that include developing research proposals, implementing and managing grants, report and manuscript writing. The ultimate goal is research output increasing at AU, especially large externally funded research. This will generate income that will in turn sustain the OROP, enabling it to provide even more professional services to researchers.