May 21, 2014
International Health Research Workshop
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Scientists from national health agencies, relief organizations and Virginia Commonwealth University presented Monday at the university’s International Health Research Workshop.
Sponsored by the VCU Global Education Office, the VCU Office of Research and the Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies at VCU, the event featured discussions on funding opportunities for global health research, on how to identify and address the challenges of international health research, and on VCU’s international research initiatives and resources.
Francis Macrina, Ph.D., vice president for research at VCU, began the daylong workshop with an introduction.
“International research has been growing for decades,” he said. “It is something that has spanned everything from exchanging materials to very serious collaboration involving instrumentation on different continents, and it is in many ways driving research that simply wouldn’t happen without the cooperation of colleagues in different countries. This is especially true in the health sciences.”
He said the National Science Foundation reported recently that, based on co-authored articles in biological research, publication by international teams doubled between 1997 and 2013.
“The application and translation of new knowledge in the health sciences is best done taking into account society in the context of the globe,” he said.
Jennifer Adams, Ph.D., deputy assistant administrator in the Bureau for Global Health, U.S. Agency for International Development, gave the keynote address on building partnerships.
She discussed a trend in global health called convergence, in which health challenges in developing countries are coming more into line with challenges facing developed countries, so strategic global health goals are expected to apply to both of these groups in the coming years.
Adams said two of those goals are to foster an AIDS-free generation and to end preventable child death in a generation.
“This is an obvious place for partnership with universities,” she said. “Because a lot of the solutions required to get to these zero-based goals will depend upon technological advancements.”
Helping universities bring those technological advancements to fruition are agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
James Herrington, Ph.D., from the Fogarty International Center at NIH, and Robert Spengler, Sc.D., acting associate director for science, Center for Global Health, CDC, presented on what international research funding sources are looking for, priority research topics, appropriate topics for international research and what makes a good international research question and proposal.
Some of VCU’s own top international researchers also presented. Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., Department of Psychology; Maghboeba Mosavel, Ph.D., Department of Social and Behavioral Health; Hyojin Im, Ph.D., School of Social Work; Kenneth Kendler, M.D., Department of Psychiatry; and J. Randy Koch, Ph.D., Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies, all participated in a panel discussion on “Identifying and Addressing the Challenges of International Research.” Topics included identifying potential collaborators, ethical and human subject issues, corruption, and differences in certain research criteria and culture.
McKenna Brown, Ph.D., executive director, Global Education Office, and Ann Nichols-Casebolt, Ph.D., senior associate vice president for research development, Office of Research, both presented on VCU’s international research initiatives and resources.
The International Health Research Workshop was the third event in the second annual VCU Global Health Forum, which spanned the 2013-2014 academic year.
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