CARTA Newsletter (July-Dec 2017) CARTA NEWSLETTER July Dec 2017

The newsletter of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa
Vol 7.
Issue 5
July-December 2017
My vision for CARTA’s future: ruminations
from Emeritus Executive Director Alex Ezeh
By Eunice Kilonzo, CARTA communications officer.
D
r. Alex Ezeh has a clear vision for how research can support African
development: to grow the size and scope of African researchers from
across the continent able to generate quality, relevant and prodigious
amounts of evidence that can answer the most pressing questions of our time.
Through the CARTA program, and its 12 partner institutions around the continent,
this is becoming a reality. The APHRC emeritus director sat down to mull over
the “interesting, exciting, real journey” that CARTA has taken, while laying out
his hoped-for vision for the future.
“Perhaps of all the things that I did at the African Population and Health Research
Center (APHRC) the one that I am really proud of, is CARTA,” he said. “The program
is innovative, impactful and clearly thought through. It has the right type of
impact we want to see happen in Africa and within African institutions.”
Prof. Sharon gives Dr. Alex Ezeh a card with farewell messages
from the participants of the Board of Management Meeting
in Nairobi, Kenya in September 2017.
In this issue
P1: My vision for CARTA’s future
P3: Research Capacity strengthening new Director
P3: CARTA program updates
P4: Study by CARTA fellow critical in malaria
research
P5: Kudos to our fellows
P8: Photo gallery
P10: International conference presentations by
CARTA fellows
P11: CARTA funders and northern Partners
P12: Publications
CARTA was born from a seed planted in 2005, when an unsuccessful candidate
for an APHRC staff position noted with concern that there were no APHRC staff
who had achieved doctoral degrees from African institutions.
“We did a review of all the staff at APHRC and indeed, we had never given a job
to someone with a PhD from an African university,” he said, which prompted an
investigation that revealed three main reasons such candidates were ultimately
unsuccessful in joining the APHRC team.
“Three things stood out: first, they were not able to speak to the current debate
in the areas they are working on – to the point that many times their ideas
were 5-10 years behind where the current discourse is. Secondly, [there were
concerns about] the methodological sophistication of their research. Were they
able to apply the right models, were they able to interpret the results well?
“Finally, these candidates were largely unable to defend their intellectual position.
These assessments yielded a convening of leaders from universities around
the continent a year later, and that 2006 meeting was a turning point: the
realization of the critical need for a PhD program that provided clear markers
for future success that included sustained commitments to research output
on and for the continent, to keep the best and brightest minds in Africa rather
than contributing to the brain drain that has impeded national and continental
socio-economic development.
P14: Calendar of activities
Building a vibrant multidisciplinary African Academy able to lead world-class research that makes a positive impact on Public and Population Health.