External evaluation of the Science Granting Councils Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa : final report - volume 1

After seven years of implementation, IDRC commissioned an external evaluation (EE) to assess the extent to which the Initiative is achieving its strategic objectives. The evaluation assesses the achievements, the role of the SGCI in actual and perceived changes, and how results have been achieved, as well as key lessons learned. The evaluation recommends actions for strengthening the overall performance of the Initiative over the next three years and certainly beyond. This final EE report is based on a thorough analysis of the literature and documentation made available to the consultants, interviews with the SGCI Initiative Management Team (IMT) and the SGCI monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) consultant, a workshop held in April 2022 with SGCI participating Councils and Collaborating Technical Agencies (CTAs), additional consultations with bilateral funding partners, the CTAs and all the Science Granting Councils (SGCs), and a specific engagement for conducting case studies with six selected SGCs and their research communities and external stakeholders (ministries, other research partners) in Uganda, Malawi, Botswana, Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Senegal. All in all, 56 interviews were conducted

External evaluation of the Science Granting Council Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa : annexes

The report includes annexes from the external evaluation of the Science Granting Council Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa, including case study reports, interviews reports, and bibliography

Mid-term evaluation of the AIMS-IDRC/DFID program, 2010-2017 : final report

The evaluation serves to provide the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS Secretariat, Centres and Chapters), AIMS Board and stakeholders, with information on the achievements of AIMS, on lessons learnt, on opportunities for change and in a context of organizational and operational growth, on recommendations for the future. It provides accountability for the main funders, addressing relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability regarding AIMS’s goals. AIMS has been effective in setting up common administrative and operating procedures as well as policies in finance and program reporting, successfully securing funds for opening four centres since 2010, with plans for two more

Interventions to improve continence for children and young people with neurodisability: a national survey of practitioner and family perspectives and experiences.

Objective Describe families’ experiences of interventions to improve continence in children and young people with neurodisability, and health professionals’ and school and social care staff’s perspectives regarding factors affecting intervention use. Design Four online surveys were developed and advertised to parent carers, young people with neurodisability, health professionals and school and social care staff, via societies, charities, professional contacts, schools, local authorities, and national parent carer and family forums, who shared invitations with their networks. Survey questions explored: difficulties helping children and young people use interventions; acceptability of interventions and waiting times; ease of use and availability of interventions, and facilitators and barriers to improving continence. Results 1028 parent carers, 26 young people, 352 health professionals and 202 school and social care staff registered to participate. Completed surveys were received from 579 (56.3%) parent carers, 20 (77%) young people, 193 (54.8%) health professionals, and 119 (58.9%) school and social care staff. Common parent carer-reported difficulties in using interventions to help their children and young people to learn to use the toilet included their child’s lack of understanding about what was required (reported by 337 of 556 (60.6%) parent carers who completed question) and their child’s lack of willingness (343 of 556, 61.7%). Almost all (142 of 156, 91%) health professionals reported lack of funding and resources as barriers to provision of continence services. Many young people (14 of 19, 74%) were unhappy using toilet facilities while out and about. Conclusions Perceptions that children lack understanding and willingness, and inadequate facilities impact the implementation of toileting interventions for children and young people with neurodisability. Greater understanding is needed for children to learn developmentally appropriate toileting skills. Further research is recommended around availability and acceptability of interventions to ensure quality of life is unaffected

Mid-term evaluation of the AIMS-IDRC/DFID program 2010-2017 : appendices to the final report

The mid-term evaluation (MTE) focuses on the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) operations in South Africa, both the Centre and the Secretariat, and centers in Ghana, Senegal and Cameroon. At all four locations, the evaluation will assess AIMS’ operations, administration and finance arrangements, systems, research and academic work. Appendices include evaluation methods and questions; evaluation questions, indicators and data sources; data analysis through cross-referenced tables of indicators, as well as the full survey questionnaire

Scoping the Skills Needs in the Social Sciences to Support Data Driven Research

This study, commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), aims to help identify the skills needs of UK social science researchers to carry-out data-driven research and fully exploit the increasing volume of large and complex data available for research purposes. Data-driven research is defined inclusively, covering all forms of data production and/or data analysis that informs and/or is used by social science researchers from archives to zines, inclusive of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data-driven research produces a robust and rigorous evidence-base that can be opened to scrutiny, and that the researcher is confident in defending. Data-driven research has sufficient rigour to inform decisions within academia and beyond. The study focusses on doctoral training and will be complemented by broader work, led by the ESRC, which considers skills needs at later career stages. It assesses core and advanced skills needs among social scientists, gaps in current provision, the structural barriers impacting the teaching or learning of data-driven skills and interventions and changes required in doctoral training, to address them. Our methodology used five phases of inquiry. A scoping literature and landscape review have delivered a foundation for primary data collection. This report is informed by 38 interviews with researchers at different career stages, a survey to Doctoral Training Partnership (DTPs) training leads and sense-checking workshops involving 14 ‘experts’ in data-driven skills and/or data-driven skill teaching plus 11 ESRC-funded doctoral candidates. Core training is defined as the teaching provided at Master’s level and which is a prerequisite for ESRC funded doctoral candidates. Advanced training is defined in two ways: specialised training which advances a researcher’s capabilities towards being an expert user; and training that researchers’ need at an advanced stage in their doctoral research projects. ‘Gaps’ are identified where there is: i) a lack of access to training in a particular skill, method or field, and ii) lack of knowledge to evaluate what skill, method, field or provider would best fill the gap identified. The findings of this research are organised into two stages: a stage 1 ‘needs analysis’, and stage 2 ‘doctoral intervention analysis’. For each stage, we present a summary of key findings, followed by a presentation of ideas on how to address relevant structural factors and barriers to data-driven skills learning (i.e. to ‘close the gap’)

Growth kinetics in MCF-7 cells modulate benzoapyrene-induced CYP1A1 up-regulation.

Pro-carcinogens, such as benzoapyrene (BaP), that are exogenous ligands of the aromatic hydrocarbon receptor may influence the susceptibility of target-cell populations through the up-regulation of cytochrome P450 (CYP) mixed function oxidases. We examined whether the growth kinetics of MCF-7 cells might determine the level of up-regulation of CYP1A1, CYP1A2 or CYP1B1 by BaP, and whether this could then influence subsequent levels of DNA damage. Cell cultures manipulated to be G0/G1-phase concentrated, S-phase concentrated or G2/M-phase concentrated were treated with BaP and the expression levels of CYP1A1, CYP1A2, CYP1B1, cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 1A CDKN1A (P21WAF1/CIP1), B-cell leukaemia/lymphoma-2 (BCL-2), and Bcl-2-associated X levels were determined. Levels of DNA damage were measured as DNA single-strand breaks (SSBs) by the alkaline single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay or as DNA adducts by 32P-postlabelling analysis. BaP-induced up-regulation of CYP1A1 was {\ensuremath{>}}100-fold in S-phase-concentrated cells, but in G0/G1-phase- or G2/M-phase-concentrated cultures up-regulation occurred to a significantly lower extent. Consistent with this, BaP-treated S-phase-concentrated cultures exhibited markedly up-regulated P21WAF1/CIP1, higher levels of dose-related increases in DNA SSBs, and increased DNA adduct levels presumably as a result of CYP1A1-mediated activation of BaP to BaP-diol-epoxide compared with the cultures enriched for the other cell cycle phases. Growth kinetics in vitro may be an important predeterminant of susceptibility to an exogenous pro-carcinogen in short-term test systems and these findings have important implications when extrapolating such results to a particular target-cell population in vivo

Lower respiratory tract infections in early childhood – authors' reply

Authors' reply to correspondence regarding their article.</p