UKCDR’s COVID CIRCLE is teaming up the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the Covid Collective for our virtual event, ‘How has Covid-19 shaped the engagement of research with policy and practice in Low- and Middle-Income Countries?’. 

The global COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis that has required rapid generation of research evidence to improve policy and practice in health, social care, and other settings. To meet this need, the researcher community has been mobilised more rapidly than ever seen before. This has created a difficult environment for policymakers and implementation actors to navigate. Particularly, as observed in UKCDR and GloPID-R’s COVID-19 Research Project Tracker, thinly spread global funding has, in some instances, resulted in a proliferation of small, underpowered studies without impact. Tied to this, historically, researchers have struggled to disseminate their research to an audience beyond their disciplinary silos and connect to those who can effect change.

The event will explore new understandings of research engagement during the pandemic in LMIC settings.  This will have implications for the funding of research and research engagement strategies during the current crisis, and the recovery phase and for building future heath emergency resilience.

Specifically, we will explore: 

• Who gets to participate in research engagement activities and why?
• Which forms of knowledge are valued by practitioners, policy actors and communities and why?
• Which channels, stakeholders and spaces are targeted?
• In what ways has the pandemic shaped research engagement in LMIC contexts?

This event will take the form of a ‘fireside chat’ and will be highly interactive with lots of discussion among attendees. There will be a maximum of 120 attendees for this event, so sign up now to secure your place.

Rapid Review

A rapid review will be produced alongside the event that will look at ‘Pathways to impact and the pandemic: A rapid review of Covid-19 research engagement strategies in Low- and Medium-Income country settings’

The aim of the review is to explore the different pathways to impact applied by research projects from a range of scientific disciplines, geographies and funding organisations. A draft rapid review will be validated during the event and finalised for publication shortly afterwards. Data sources include project from the following research groups:

• FCDO Covid Collective
• UKCDR COVID CIRCLE
• IDRC Covid Response for Equity Programme