The MakCHS IKT office is mandated to find innovative ways of increasing the uptake of research findings and other innovations into policy and practice. To this end, we organize several activities that are aimed at increasing the use of research.

With funding from THRiVE, we have explored different horizons in increasing research uptake and use in Uganda, especially the research coming out of MakCHS. From supporting researchers to communicate their findings better, to engaging policymakers to appreciate the value of research and use research to guide decisions. In the last quarter, we held several workshops aimed at training researchers in engaging with policymakers.

Between October and December 2014 we had trainings of 14 THRiVE and MESAU funded PhD candidates as well as up to 14 researchers, masters and PhD candidates from the Child health and Development Centre-MakCHS. The MakCHS IKT office, with support from the Africa Centre for Systematic Reviews and Knowledge Translation provided technical support in writing policy briefs and engaging policy makers to support the above groups of researchers. From these trainings we were able to obtain 8 completed policy briefs, all from the CHDC team. These workshops have produced 8 completed policy briefs and we are working on completing another 8 still in the pipeline in the coming months. Some teams that we have trained have gone ahead to organize stakeholder dialogues and dissemination workshops using the policy briefs as tools for the engagement.

The IKT office continues to support other researchers in different departments across MakCHS to develop products and strategies for engaging the non-academic public with their work. We are very grateful for the unrelenting support THRiVE has given us to be able to accomplish our goals.