 Message from HEARD's Director, Prof Alan Whiteside I have just three weeks of sabbatical left. It has been good to be in the northern hemisphere through a spring, summer and now an autumn. HEARD's Gender and HIV and AIDS Project Gender and gender inequalities are a central aspect in the transmission of HIV throughout the world, particularly in southern and eastern Africa South African Work-Family Symposium The South African Work-Family Symposium where employers can gauge their own progress on work-family policy against other players in the industry will take place on 30 November in Cape Town. Increasing African Capacity Central to HEARD's Capacity Building agenda, the Young Researchers Initiative (YRI) aims to provide support to young researchers based in eastern and southern Africa to produce high quality, accessible research on HIV/AIDS. At Last, Progress in Developing an AIDS Vaccine According to recent media reports, an experimental HIV vaccine has for the first time cut risk of infection. HEARD's Director, Prof Alan Whiteside was invited by OUPblog to post his views on this recent development which he says this will lead to new investment and energy in the development of vaccines. OUPblog is Oxford University Press' blogosphere for learning, understanding and reflection. A New HEARD Research Agenda on XDR-TB In response to the emergence of drug resistant TB in South Africa, HEARD has set up a research project to explore the reasons for the high levels of hospital transmission of XDR-TB.   | Newsletter Issue 1 October 2009 Central to HEARD’s Capacity Building agenda, the Young Researchers Initiative (YRI) aims to provide support to young researchers based in eastern and southern Africa to produce high quality, accessible research on HIV/AIDS. It emerged from the recognition that many bright and talented academics and researchers based in southern and eastern Africa, lacked the support to turn their innovative and interesting research into publishable material. Building from the first meeting of young researchers in May 2008 at the HEARD 10-Year Retrospective, at the start of 2009 the YRI moved into its second phase, and is focused on working with a group of 10 young researchers to expose them to top-level HIV/AIDS research and strengthen their academic writing skills. Early 2009, HEARD put out an open call for abstracts through its networks in eastern and southern Africa. Ten young researchers were selected based on submission of the quality and potential of their abstracts - with recognition of the need to ensure continuity by including young researchers who had been at the 10-Year Retrospective. These 10 were brought to Durban to attend the 4th South African AIDS Conference from 31 March to 3 April. As one young researcher said of their conference attendance: "Attending this conference was a learning curve for me...it was also a boost for my academic life. I am equipped with new information on recent research around HIV and AIDS. The insights from the presenters has also challenged me to consider the kind of research I can do in Botswana." The YRI has now moved into its third phase, linking young researchers with senior HIV researchers to provide academic mentorship. The researchers were asked to submit papers, through which HEARD selected five papers (again based on quality and potential) for this phase of the project. HEARD has managed to link young researchers to some exciting and top-level researches in the field of HIV, including Dr Poloko Kebaabetswe (a senior clinical researcher on a PREP study in Botswana), Dr Kevin Kelly (managing editor African Journal of AIDS Research and CADRE's director) and Prof Catherine Campbell (based at LSE, who wrote the influential 'Letting them Die': Why HIV Programmes Fail). By the end of January 2010 these five papers will have been developed into high quality papers and submitted to academic journals. At the end of 2009, HEARD will start the YRI process again to expand the pool of young researchers in eastern and southern Africa who have the skills to publish academic articles. |
