Evaluating agency initiatives: building social science capability in tropical disease research

In recent years, in an endeavour to increase social and economic research in tropical diseases, WHO/TDR has used a number of alternative models to develop social science research capability in countries endemic for the designated tropical diseases. These have included small grants schemes to encourage junior researchers to gain familiarity with the subject area and methods, and protocol development and methodology workshops, either for specific research topics (e.g. adolescent women's health; community perceptions of schistosomiasis) or for any topic of interest to the participants. Participants have included medical researchers, social science researchers, and interdisciplinary teams (e.g. a medical researcher and a collaborating social scientist). This paper develops a typology and critically analyses these alternative approaches to developing research capability, and assesses their effectiveness in terms of cost, short-term effectiveness, and sustainability of the initiative.