The partnership between Fiocruz and the University of Oxford has been expanding since 2019, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed to formalize concrete lines of collaboration. Starting with the creation of an institutional hub on The Global Health Network (TGHN) platform, the Foundation now assumes the role of articulating a Latin American Network to strengthen health research. The launch took place during the TGHN Conference, on the 24th and 25th of November, in Cape Town, South Africa, and was attended by the vice-president of Education, Information and Communication (Vpeic/Fiocruz), Cristiani Machado, in addition to researchers and the coordination of the Foundation's Hub.

Shifting the leadership center to the Global South was a long-standing intention of TGHN director, Trudie Lang. Thus, based on this collaboration, Fiocruz was invited to be the articulator of the regional network, working with six other institutions to form and expand the work of this alliance. Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic, in addition to the TGHN itself, form this cooperation network that seeks to establish equity between those who produce and those who benefit from the results of studies, strengthening research and data science capabilities. Funding for this work will come from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.

In addition to Fiocruz, for Brazil, the Institute of Clinical and Sanitary Effectiveness (Iecs), from Argentina; the University of the Valley, in Colombia; the Antonio Vidal Institute of Infectious Diseases and Parasitology, from Honduras; the NGO Etikos, from the Dominican Republic; and the Caetano Heredia University in Peru. Together with the Latin American Network, two others were formed: the Asian one, led by the International Center for Diarrhea Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), from Bangladesh, and the African one, by the Center for Disease Control in Africa, headquartered in Ethiopia.

“This strengthening of research capacity and data management within the scope of the Global South is important.” explained Cristiani Machado. “Within the project, we are going to organize courses, workshops, pilot projects for data reuse, in addition to sharing tools and research protocols.” she added.

Regional Open Science

On the issue of teaching, there is an emphasis on training young researchers, both in training for research and for work with communities, which has been a hallmark of several projects developed by Fiocruz. “The idea is to structure a horizontal governance in this regional network with the formation of a committee in which its leader circulates among the other members.” explains Flávia Bueno, executive coordinator of Projects at the Fiocruz Hub TGHN.

The regional network project has two main components: capacity building in health research and data science. The idea is that with the path of research mapped, and the data stored on secure platforms with controlled access, these can be accessed to answer new research questions or even serve to inspire other researchers, who will be able to adapt these models to their own needs.

The establishment of the regional network comes at a time when Fiocruz is implementing its data management, sharing, and opening policy, approved by the 2020 Deliberative Council. “Today, Fiocruz has an Open Science Forum, with the representation of different instances of the various units. And the debate has been expanding”, says Vanessa Jorge, Information and Communication coordinator at Vpeic/Fiocruz. “And this possibility of exchange, of learning and also of support, taking our knowledge to the partners, will be very rich to think about a regional Open Science, based on a perspective of the South.” she adds.

Fiocruz at the Conference

The event had several pre-conference meetings and had the presence and active participation of the Fiocruz community. “Making health research possible in all health care environments” was the theme of the conference that celebrated more than 10 years of TGHN’s existence – its first face-to-face event and which should have taken place in 2020 but was postponed due to the pandemic.

Researcher at the Data and Knowledge Integration Center for Health (Cidacs/Fiocruz Bahia), Gustavo Matta was invited to participate in the Connectors Symposium, which took place between November 21st and 23rd, and dealt with the topic of community participation in research. At the Conference, he spoke about the role of community participation during the Zika epidemic and emphasized the importance of women in this process.

Valentina Martufi, also from Cidacs/Fiocruz Bahia, presented her project using real-world data to measure primary health care and its effects on maternal and child health in Brazil. Fernando Bozza, from the National Institute of Infectology (INI/Fiocruz), spoke about his multidimensional intervention work in the Maré community. His group worked on the COVID-19 response with the implementation of testing, vaccination and a survey that has been following two cohorts of people to study vaccination and long-term COVID. This work had fundamental articulation with the community and employed local workers, which contributed to the success of the initiative. Both are part of a larger Fiocruz team that participated in an event for researchers funded by the Grand Challenges program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In addition, vice-president Cristiani Machado led the debates at the Pandemic Prevention with Responsive Research Systems panel. The activity had the participation of John Amuasi, leader of the Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research Group (KCCR-KNUST), from Ghana, who explained why we need research capacities installed in all health care environments to prevent new pandemics: “Research is the key to our collective survival”, he emphasized.

The vice president also participated in the final table of the conference that discussed the role of women in science. Alongside health research leaders in the world, such as Aliya Naheed, Yewande Alimi and Lyda Osorio, the table addressed topics, such as gender inequalities, the role of motherhood and what needs to be done for a change with an impact on society to revert this picture.

The conference was streamed online and can be viewed on YouTube. It is also possible to access the sites of the new hub for Latin America and Fiocruz and participate in these communities of practice.

Source: Fiocruz News Agency

Translation: Juliana Xavier

Image: Disclosure