Professor Mike Parker: building capacity in global health research ethics.
Funded by an Ethics and Society Strategic Award
Professor Mike Parker heads a Strategic Award given by the Wellcome Trust to the University of Oxford in 2012. His research builds on a previous Trust Enhancement Award in Biomedical Ethics, which funded an international research network on the ethics of collaborative global health research. The network - a joint initiative of the Ethox Centre in Oxford and the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kilifi, Kenya - sought to build ethics expertise and capacity both in the UK and in lower-income countries, with a particular emphasis on building capacity at the Trust's Major Overseas Programme sites.
The network's research activities focus on four themes: community engagement, global ethics governance, the ethics of research collaboration, and the roles and responsibilities of research actors. The network also acts as a focus for encouraging local research initiatives in low- and middle-income countries.
Professor Parker's new Strategic Award will develop a programme of capacity building in global health research ethics and community engagement across the Wellcome Trust Major Overseas Programmes. It recognises that global health research, often bringing together multiple partners from low- and high-income countries, presents a range of important ethical and social issues not previously found in combination. These include issues relating to the sharing of data and biological samples between low- and high-income countries, and what is to count as valid consent in the context of research occurring in multiple low-income settings.
This project will therefore build ethics expertise and capacity across the Major Overseas Programmes by combining world-class research with a well-managed programme of networked, locally driven capacity-building activities in Vietnam, Thailand, Malawi, Kenya and South Africa, helping them to meet the objectives set out in the Wellcome Trust's Strategic Plan for 2010-20, building capacity and expertise in ethics and community engagement, and training the next generation of leaders in the field of global health research ethics.
These outcomes will be achieved through the combination of world-class research and a well-managed programme of networked, locally driven capacity-building activities including: ethics bursaries; education, training and mentorship; ethics support and advice; and the development of shared online resources.
