Feedback
The Toolbox is work in progress.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome!
Why would you use the Toolbox?
You are a busy NGO or health worker wanting to:
Measure the impact of your programs
But you don’t know how to build the necessary structures and systems?
And you don’t want to re-invent the wheel?
Translate your findings into policy & practice
But you don’t know how to start?
Design evidence-based health programs
But where do you find the latest evidence without wasting too much time?
Collaborate with a Research Institute?
But where will you find a suitable partner?
And what steps do you have to take for a successful collaboration?
The Idea
Most of the supportive resources for practitioners are available online, but are fragemented and many different websites have to be consulted. This online toolbox is a first step to combine the different resources and to support NGOs to integrate research into their work. The focus is also on collecting and summarizing up to date quality relevant evidence for NGOs per topic (which is already out there but not in one spot) as well as providing the opportunity for exchange and collaboration with Research Institutes. It is envisaged to further develop and to invest more resources into this web-based platform to allow practitioners to get a quick, up to date and user-friendly overview on existing evidence and other supportive tools to integrate research into their work or to collaborate with Research Institutes: The vision is to develop a "Research Gate for Practitioners" to share, learn and collaborate!
Background
This NGO Research Tool Box was developed by Nicole Moran as part of a Master Thesis in International Health at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (www.swisstph.ch) and in coordination with Medicus Mundi International - Health for All (MMI), a network of organisations working in the field of international health cooperation and advocacy (www.medicusmundi.org).
The Research Policy of MMI identifies challenges for MMI Network Members as well as for many other NGOs to “Get evidence into NGO policy and practice” and to “Get NGO practice into research”. The MMI Working Group on Research identified the need to develop a set of tools for NGOs to conduct research and to access and translate existing research findings into policy and practice.
The toolbox was presented at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Capetown in 2014 and at the 9th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health in Basel in 2015. A follow up paper makes the case for creating a platform for implementation research for NGOs (a "Research Gate for Practitioners").