Capacity building activities
COMPASS has provided us with the opportunity to develop a program of continuing education and development for postdoctoral staff in the transition from completing a PhD to becoming independent researchers.
The program has a number of components:
- Individual mentoring by lead investigators that involves specific supervision, mentoring and support;
- Opportunities for co-mentoring by team investigators who themselves bring a wide range of skills and expertise to COMPASS;
- A personal development and skills development program with a focus on strengthening personal capacities and developing research leadership, as well as providing practical skills, such as research project management, writing skills (for grant applications and for publication); and skill development for public health advocacy and research transfer;
- Capacity-building through participation in multi-disciplinary research that addresses complex problems with appropriately conceptualised interventions to address them;
- A program of two workshops per year open to all members of the three participating research groups – our first workshop has just been held on the ‘uses and abuses of focus groups’;
- A short course on complex interventions, also open to the wider public health community that will be held in 2008, 2010 and 2012, with the first planned in April 2008 [link here to registration brochure]; and
Finally, a book is planned on public health research methods with a focus on complex questions, settings and interventions, with contributions based on the past and ongoing research of COMPASS investigators.
