IASC2024 now accepting abstracts!

The Ifakara Annual Scientific Conference (IASC2024)is scheduled to take place in Bagamoyo from 28-30 November 2024. The conference theme is “Driving Health Impact through Collaborative Research and Innovation”. 

The conference organizing team is pleased to invite Ifakara scientists to submit abstracts for consideration for the IASC2024. Kindly note, the call is open to Ifakara Health Institute staff and collaborators only. However, participation will also be open to selected partners on invitation. 

The abstracts must be submitted through the ONLINE abstracts submissions form: IASC2024: Abstract submissions by November 8, 2024. The abstract should align with the main theme of the conference and focus on the following subthemes;

• Leveraging Multidisciplinary Approaches for Health Solutions
• Integrating Community Feedback into Research Practices
• Accelerating Health Innovations through Strategic Partnerships
• Promoting Evidence-Based Practices for Sustainable Health Outcomes
• Bridging International and Local Partnerships to Drive Health Impact
• Promote data science and artificial intelligence in research

Authors who submit an abstract can be asked to give one oral presentation. Moreover, additional papers may be considered for poster sessions at the discretion of the Abstracts Technical Lead and the IASC2024 Organizing Team.

The IASC2024 aims to foster collaboration among researchers, scientists, and health professionals to advance impactful health solutions through innovative research. Attendees will have the opportunity to share knowledge, explore new partnerships, and discuss strategies to address pressing health challenges.

This year’s IASC2024 conference on “Driving Health Impact through Collaborative Research and Innovation” is a valuable opportunity for Ifakara scientists to learn, network, and collaborate with others, with the shared goal of generating evidence and transforming lives.

NOTE: Those who wish to attend should be aware that all transport and accommodation costs should be covered by their respective projects or units.

Call for abstracts at the 1st Int'l conference on Aedes-Borne disease surveillance & control

Ifakara Health Institute and Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) are thrilled to announce the inaugural joint international conference on “Advances in Surveillance and Control Methods for Aedes-Borne Diseases and Urban Vectors." This event is organized with support from the European INOVEC project and is scheduled to take place from August 26-28, 2024, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

This conference will serve as a pivotal forum for the exchange of ideas within the scientific community, welcoming researchers, students, academia, public health professionals, stakeholders, donor agencies, industry representatives, and international organizations dedicated to combating vector-borne diseases (VBDs).

The conference will be organized around three key themes: the Biology and Ecology of Aedes Vectors, Integrated Approaches to Vector Control, and Innovation in Vector Control.

The aim is to cultivate collaboration, critically review existing evidence, establish new networks, mobilize resources, and advocate for both fundamental and translational research, to ultimately mitigate the global burden of vector-borne diseases.

We invite all interested participants to contribute by submitting abstracts via the Abstract Submission Form.

Important dates

The abstract submission deadline has been extended to 17 June 2024

Conference Dates: August 26-28, 2024

Follow us on our social media channels (@ifakarahealth) including Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and LinkedIn, to stay updated on all conference announcements and developments. 

>> Kindly direct any questions to this email: inovec@ihi.or.tz 

Call for abstract submission at the 2023 Ifakara Annual Scientific Conference

Ifakara Health Institute invites applicants to submit their abstracts at the Ifakara Annual Scientific Conference, which will be held from August 23-25, 2023 in Ifakara Town, Morogoro. The abstracts should observe the conference’s main theme “Knowledge Translation for Health Impact” 

The deadline to submit abstracts is July 22, 2023.

Call for Papers for a Special Issue on Digital Technologies to Support Health and Wellbeing

The International Journal of Environmental Research  and Public Health (IJERPH) is an open access journal by Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), a publisher of scientific journals in Basel, Switzerland. The journal is working on a special issue on Digital Technologies to Support Health and Wellbeing. You're invited to submit articles that offer evaluations of digital tools in these settings—integration and interoperability of systems—enforcing good software development standards and practices, as well as ethical and data security challenges surrounding their development, implementation, and use.

Submit your articles by January 2nd 2023.

Call for Participation to the Idea Marathon at the Ifakara Innovation Hub

Ifakara Innovation Hub (IIH) plans to implement a program known as "Idea Marathon". The program aims to gather innovations of medical appliances/devices that will be enrolled in very first Product Development Partnership cohort. In this cohort, the IIH is partnering with different Industry experts in Tanzania, Kenya, and Switzerland to equip the innovators with relevant skills, technical and financial support to bring the innovations to life.

Call for Applications into PCOR Research Training Program on HIV: PostDoc

Applications are invited for two full-time postdoctoral positions for a period of 1 year. The position is part of the project “Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR)” targeting research questions on measuring and improving patient-reported outcomes (PROs) such as quality of life, functional status, symptoms, self-management and empowerment, treatment satisfaction and experiential quality in Tanzania.

Pre-Qualification of Vendors for FY 2021/2022

Ifakara Health Institute invites applications from eligible, and competent vendors to provide goods and services for the financial year 2021/2022. The full announcement (attached) was published in local newspapers (The Guardian, Daily News and Mwananchi) on Monday June 28th 2021.

Women in Research Essential Grant Writing Skills Workshop - 2021

The Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) works to strengthen the health research capacity of scientists in Sub-Saharan Africa who are engaged in tackling the sub-region’s significant health challenges. We recognise the need to support a diverse community of scientists across Africa, therefore, this call is specifically open for women biomedical/health researchers.

AREF is calling for applications from women who are emerging biomedical/health researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa to participate in its Essential Grant Writing Skills Workshop. To fully benefit from this workshop series, you will be at a stage in your research career where you are actively seeking independent funding but have yet to secure that big grant necessary to support your research independence. This fully on-line programme will be held over eight 3-hour sessions during the weeks of 13th September 2021 and 18th October 2021.

There will be a four-week break in between the two sessions, during which you will be expected to write a draft of a proposal. This is an intensive and interactive programme that is designed to produce tangible progress towards a grant proposal by the end of the workshop series. Your commitment to the entire series and to the additional work outside of sessions will be necessary to achieve these outcomes.

Learn more about the workshop here. Hit the 'More details' button to access and complete the application form.

HIV Implementation Science Research Fellowships

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan), in partnership with Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Science (MUHAS) and the Africa Academy for Public Health (AAPH), offers a limited number of postdoctoral research training fellowships at Harvard Chan to Tanzanian public health researchers, physician scientists, and other health professionals.

Supported by the Fogarty International Center at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the HIV Implementation Science (HIS) Research Training Program aims to develop a cadre of public health researchers in Tanzania prepared to lead research and scientific projects in implementation science, impact evaluation, and health system research for HIV treatment and nutrition interventions.

2021 Joint EMRO/TDR Call for Applications on International Health Regulations (2005) and Health Security Preparedness Research

The purpose of this call is to identify projects that will document, synthesize and disseminate evidence of capacities for IHR (2005) implementation, health security and health emergency preparedness, as well as supporting the collaborative development and advancement of a preparedness research and development agenda. Learn more here.

East and Southern African Consortium for Outbreak Epidemiology Training (ENTRANT) Fellowships

The Mwanza Intervention Trials Unit (MITU) based at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) campus in Mwanza, (Tanzania) is a collaborative research unit of NIMR and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). MITU’s mission is to contribute to improving health through the development and evaluation of interventions against HIV and other health problems by conducting research, including clinical trials, to the highest international standards; to enhance the capacity to carry out such research in Tanzania and the East African region; and to contribute to the translation of research findings into health policy.

MITU, in collaboration with LSHTM and five other African institutional partners, is part of the ENTRANT training fellowship programme which seeks to develop a critical mass of infectious disease epidemiologists to work with the Ministries of health and their academic and research partners, to prevent and respond to emerging outbreaks and public health emergencies.

Summary of the Fellowship

The programme, funded by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), will support 15 African scientists over two academic years (2021-2023) to complete a one-year full-time MSc degree in Epidemiology at the LSHTM.

At least two fellows will be from Tanzania. In addition to the MSc taught courses, fellows will also complete an LSHTM short[1]course on pandemic preparedness, response and research led by members of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) and a three-month MSc research project carried out in Tanzania.

More Details and How to Apply

Those who are interested to learn more about the fellowships and proceed to apply, more details are provided in the announcement attached below.

Symposia: Malaria in the Era of COVID-19

Keystone Symposia and MESA will host an eSymposia on “Malaria in the Era of COVID-19” aiming to shed light on how to effectively combat the dual challenges of a malaria-endemic world, along-side new complications posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The event will be held from March 16-17, 2021 at 8:00AM EST / 12:00PM UTC / 2:00PM CET.
 

Registration
Regular Registration Rate: $150 USD. There is free registration for assistants based in a low-middle income country.

More
Check out this Toolkit:  Keystone and MESA Symposia.

HRP Alliance mentorship program for young female researchers

The HRP Alliance will launch a mentorship program for young female researchers on December 3, 2020. The launching event will be done virtually over Zoom. The HRP Alliance recognises that young female researchers sometimes need extra resource help to navigate career and development paths within WHO. A partner, Antoinette Oglethorpe Ltd, has been asked to help facilitate the program that will encourage and support career development. 

The launching event will be a 90 minute webinar designed to help prospective mentors and mentees, understand what mentoring is and the benefits it can bring. Learn more about the program in the attached document.

How to Apply

Please click on the link to register in advance for this webinar: 

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ErNysbwTRTKw6AGpkvS7xg 

The webinar will be held via Zoom on Thursday 3rd December at 11.30am UK time.  It will last for 90 minutes.  There is no additional cost to you to attend. 

Request for Information for Implementation Research Case Studies: Approaches to Advance Respectful and Compassionate Care in TANZANIA

The HEARD Project (a collaboration between USAID, University Research Co., LLC, Ifakara Health Institute, and Africa Academy for Public Health in Tanzania) seeks to co-fund the documentation and analysis of existing efforts/promising approaches to advance respectful and compassionate care in Tanzania and technically assist its implementations.

Promising approaches generally refer to interventions that have the potential to successfully advance policies, advocacy, systemic or interpersonal actions, facility-based, and/or community-driven efforts to improve respectful environments of care. Woman-centered respectful care approaches, for this purpose, span interventions that target antenatal care, maternity care and postnatal care and could, for example, include policy, advocacy, program (facility or community-based), training and mentoring interventions.

Therefore, its hereby soliciting short proposals from Tanzania-based partnerships between implementation assistance entities and local research institutions that demonstrate an opportunity to generate implementation research case studies that capture learning around how and why specific promising approaches advance respectful care within and beyond the context of a global pandemic such as COVID-19—specifically in Tanzania.  

Deadline for Questions: August 19, 2020, 5:00 PM (EAT)

Questions by email ONLY to: heard@urc-chs.com

Closing Date and Time for Applications: August 27, 2020, 5:00 PM (EAT)

Applications must be emailed to: heard@urc-chs.com

Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships 2021-2022

The call for Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships 2021-2022 for Foreign Scholars for the 2021–2022 Academic Year is open!

Each year the Swiss Confederation awards Government Excellence Scholarships to promote international exchange and research cooperation between Switzerland and over 180 other countries. Recipients are selected by the awarding body, the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (FCS).

The Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships are aimed at young researchers from abroad who have completed a master’s degree or PhD.
The research scholarship is available to post-graduate researchers in any discipline (who hold a master’s degree as a minimum) who are planning to go to Switzerland to pursue research or further studies at doctoral or post-doctoral level.

MPH Implementation Science Course at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences

The Master of Public Health in Implementation Science (MPH IS) aims at training health professionals from Tanzania in methodological and substantive aspects of Implementation Science.

Duration: 2 years, full time

Mode of delivery: Mixed (face-to-face and online), field attachment.

Entry requirements/Qualification:

1. Graduates with bachelor degrees from any recognized University in the fields of Medicine, Dentistry, Laboratory Sciences, Veterinary Sciences, Pharmacy, Environmental Health Sciences, Nursing or any other relevant health related fields.
2. Graduates with bachelor degrees in other fields of study such as statistics, epidemiology, demography, food science, social science, information and communications technology (ICT), economics, public health and other relevant fields may also apply provided they are graduates from recognized Universities.
3.  Applicants must have scored at least a GPA of 2.7 in their undergraduate degree course.

To apply use this link: https://www.muhas.ac.tz/announcements/321

NIHR COVID -19 Funding Opportunity

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has launched a call for global health research to tackle COVID-19 in LMICs, in partnership with the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). This research call is aiming to support applied health research that will address COVID-19 knowledge gaps. The focus is on understanding the pandemic and mitigating its health impacts in LMICs. The call prioritises epidemiology, clinical management, infection control and health system responses.

Internship Program on Infectious Diseases Modelling

This is an inter-disciplinary internship program aimed at building and enhancing skills related to data management and analysis, software programming, machine learning and mathematical modelling.

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