A workshop to strengthen capacity for implementation research was held in Morogoro, Tanzania on 23 – 28 March 2015. The six-day training workshop was jointly organized by the Tanzania National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) and ADP project partner TDR (Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases). The workshop was attended by almost 40 participants, including scientists, medical practitioners and staff from national control programmes on TB, Malaria and NTDs.
Implementation research helps illuminate the obstacles to introduction, integration and uptake of health technologies. The aim of the workshop was to introduce participants to the key concepts and steps involved in implementation research, guide them through the process of developing an implementation research project proposal and thereby strengthen the capacity of institutions to conduct implementation and operational research in health. The training was based on an Implementation Research Toolkit produced by TDR.
By the end of the workshop, robust first drafts of 7 implementation research proposals were developed by the attendants to address priority problems identified by national control programmes on TB, Malaria and NTDs.
The Morogoro workshop was the third in a series of workshops on implementation research conducted under the ADP in Tanzania since May 2014. These multi-stakeholder workshops have helped identify gaps and bottlenecks that impact the introduction of new health technologies, formulate operational / implementation research questions that can address these gaps and build the capacity of programs and researchers in Tanzania to conduct implementation research.