Capacity

The activities take place across three interconnected levels:

• Individual: e.g. PhD training to increase a county's human capital
• Organisational: building the infrastructure and skills of a university to conduct and manage research 
• Institutional: addressing the incentive structures, and political and regulatory context in which research takes place and is used 

Our members fund a number of programmes that include capacity strengthening, ranging from research programmes where it is a minor component, through to multi-million pound initiatives where it is the main objective.

What we do:

UKCDS brings together our members and key UK players in this area to:

• Share information on aid alignment.
• Highlight opportunities for collaboration.
• Share lessons to promote best practice.
• Discuss challenges such as monitoring and evaluation of capacity strengthening interventions.
• Conduct mapping into research capacity strengthening priorities.

UKCDS Outputs:

• Research Capacity Strengthening Group (RCSG) - we convene this group twice a year to discuss current trends in this area. The group includes both funders such as DFID, Wellcome and ESRC, and organisations that deliver programmes, such as INASP, the ACU and the Royal Society.