Using a rapid environmental scan methodology to map country-level global health research expertise in Canada

Abstract Background Many countries are currently rethinking their global health research funding priorities. When resources are limited, it is important to understand and use information about existing research strengths to inform research strategies and investments and to drive impact. This study describes a method to rapidly assess a country’s global health research expertise and applies this method in the Canadian context. Methods We developed a three-pronged rapid environmental scan to evaluate Canadian global health research expertise that focused on research funding inputs, research activities and research outputs. We assessed research funding inputs from Canada’s national health research funding agency and identified the 30 Canadian universities that received the most global health research funding. We systematically searched university websites and secondary databases to identify research activities, including research centres, research chairs and research training programmes. To evaluate research outputs, we searched PubMed to identify global health research publications by Canadian university-affiliated researchers. We used these three perspectives to develop a more nuanced understanding of Canadian strengths in global health research from different perspectives. Results Canada’s main global health research funder, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, invested a total of $314 M from 2000 to 2016 on global health research grants. This investment has contributed to Canada’s wealth of global health research expertise, including 12 training programmes, 27 Canada Research Chairs, 6 research centres and 30 WHO Collaborating Centres across 27 universities. Research activities were concentrated in Canada’s biggest cities and most commonly focused on health equity and globalisation issues. Canadian-affiliated researchers have contributed to a research output of 822 unique publications on PubMed. There is an opportunity to build global health expertise in regions not already concentrated with research activity, focusing on transnational risks and neglected conditions research. Conclusions Our three-pronged approach allowed us to rapidly identify clear geographic and substantive areas of strength in Canadian global health research, including urban regions and research focused on health equity and globalisation topics. This information can be used to support research policy directives, including to inform a Canadian global health research strategy, and to allow relevant academic institutions and funding organisations to make more strategic decisions regarding their future investments.

Tags
Data and Resources
To access the resources you must log in

This item has no data

Identity

Description: The Identity category includes attributes that support the identification of the resource.

Field Value
PID https://www.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4932882.v1
PID https://www.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4932882
URL http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4932882.v1
URL http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4932882
Access Modality

Description: The Access Modality category includes attributes that report the modality of exploitation of the resource.

Field Value
Access Right not available
Attribution

Description: Authorships and contributors

Field Value
Author Nagi, Ranjana
Author Katwyk, Susan Rogers Van
Author Hoffman, Steven J., 0000-0002-2064-3711
Publishing

Description: Attributes about the publishing venue (e.g. journal) and deposit location (e.g. repository)

Field Value
Collected From Datacite
Hosted By figshare
Publication Date 2020-01-01
Publisher figshare
Additional Info
Field Value
Language UNKNOWN
Resource Type Collection
system:type other
Management Info
Field Value
Source https://science-innovation-policy.openaire.eu/search/other?orpId=dedup_wf_001::eda8570b1e9f8454216aa03e76150b52
Author jsonws_user
Last Updated 20 December 2020, 03:25 (CET)
Created 20 December 2020, 03:25 (CET)