University of Glasgow

Area of work: Education, Postgraduate
Location of work: Mzuzu

Project lead: Dr Alistair Tough
Contact details: Alistair.Tough@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Mzuzu University
Partner contact: Dr George Chipeta
Contact details: Gchipeta5@gmail.com

More information: www.mzuni.ac.mw

Description of project

We aim to improve the sustainability of taught postgraduate education in Information Management, Records Management, Librarianship and Archive Studies in Malawi, through supplying professional support, teaching materials, electronic resources, books and journals.

The MLIS degree programme was developed with support from the SMP. Course materials, particularly workbooks, were produced and mentoring provided for Malawian counterparts. However, the lead role in supporting the MLIS passed to Norwegians because Norad provided financial support towards start-up costs. Recently our Malawian colleagues have renewed our partnership

Key successes and outcomes so far

The first cohort of students have graduated and many are now in jobs where they can use their skills to: promote economic and social development; enable communities to access information; support public sector reform; and detect and deter unethical behaviour.

Future and ideas for partnership development

We are hoping for financial support to enable partner(s) from Glasgow University to spend time in Mzuzu University and vice versa.

Area of work: Research, Disease, Hypertension
Location of work: Blantyre

Project lead: Dr. Pasquale Maffia
Contact details: Pasquale.Maffia@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Academy of Medical Sciences, Malawi University of Science and Technology

Funding: Global Challenges Research Funds (Scottish Funding Council - University of Glasgow)

Description of project

Results of a recent survey in Malawi showed that over 30% of Malawians aged between 25 and 64 years are hypertensive and this has prompted the government to rank hypertension as one of the key health challenges in the country.

Although demographic, lifestyle and diet changes in urban areas contribute substantially to the burden of hypertension in LMICs, investigating other potential contributing factors, which are specifically prevalent in such LMICs, could assist in elucidating pathophysiological mechanisms underlying hypertensive predisposition. This could also help in coming up with preventative measures and potential treatments for hypertension in the long term.

Increasing recent evidence supports the hypothesis of a link between malaria infection and hypertension development but very little clinical research has been done on the topic. We therefore hypothesise that Malawian adults, who have been infected with severe malaria are more susceptible to developing hypertension as a result of exposure to the inflammatory environment.

Within this project we propose to establish proof-of-concept for future large cohort studies investigating relationships between malaria and hypertension. We also propose to investigate possible mechanisms of this link in hypothesis driven studies.

The project has just started, as such there is no impact to report to date.

Future and ideas for partnership development

Confirmation of a link between malaria and hypertension would be of paramount importance and could lead to fundamental changes in the way to control hypertension and related cardiovascular disease in LMICs. The main output generated by this project will be the establishment of proof-of-concept for future large cohort studies investigating relationships between malaria and hypertension. This can be achieved by studying young adults with malaria and looking in the future at particularly vulnerable population of pregnant women or people in remote areas.

Area of work: Research, Disease, Vaccination
Location of work: Blantyre

Project lead: Dr Megan MacLeod

Partner organisation: Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical & Research Programme
Partner contact: Dr Khuzwayo Jere, Dr Kondwani Jambo

Funding: Global Challenges Research Funds (Scottish Funding Council - University of Glasgow)

Description of project

Rotavirus is a gastrointestinal virus responsible for the deaths of over 215,000 children annually. Almost all these deaths occur in low-middle income countries (LMIC) where the vaccine has much reduced efficacy. The vaccine activates adaptive immune cells, T and B cells, that specifically recognise rotavirus. Activated B cells produce specific antibody that is thought to provide protective immunity. The generation of long-lived antibody to provide sustained protection is entirely dependent on help from rotavirus specific T cells.

We hypothesize that the low efficacy and poorly sustained immunity to rotavirus following vaccination in children in Malawi is due to poor T cell responses. Identifying poor T cell responses as the cause of reduced vaccine efficacy, will provide us with the preliminary data necessary for a GCRF joint project with the aim of identifying ways to boost T cell responses. This will ultimately lead to improved vaccine design, reduced disease burden and fatalities in children from LMIC, including Malawi.

Objectives

Our objective is to characterise vaccine-induced rotavirus-specific T cells in Malawian infants vaccinated with Rotarix vaccine (RV1). We will:

1. Determine whether RV-specific T cells express markers allowing them to migrate to the site of infection (the gut) and survive long-term.
2. Determine whether RV-specific T cells produce the molecules necessary for viral control and help B cells make antibody.
3. Use findings as preliminary data for a larger GCRF application with the ultimate aim of improving RV vaccines.

We will collect blood from children prior to and following RV1 vaccination. T cells will be stimulated with virus-like particles or preparations from the rotavirus vaccine strain enabling rotavirus specific T cells identification by cytokine production. The phenotype and functional responses will be investigated and compared to vaccine induced antibody responses and presence of rotavirus at time of vaccination.

Our team of experts in T cell and B cell responses will provide the knowledge and technical expertise to generate and analyse these data. We will communicate throughout by Skype and will meet on two occasions to discuss progress, exchange technical expertise including promoting interactions between PhD students, and write an application to GCRF.

Key successes and outcomes so far

This project is at an early stage as we are still gathering the scientific data. What we would like to highlight is the sharing of best practice of data analysis between the groups in Scotland and Malawi and that this was expanded upon during face-face meetings held in June 2019.

Future and ideas for partnership development

This is a short project that has the goal of generating preliminary data for a larger scientific grant application. The project, therefore, offers opportunities for future collaborations between the teams in UoG and MLW. Our current and the future project aim to generate new knowledge that will improve our understanding of vaccine efficacy in Malawi and other LMIC. This new knowledge could aid in better design or delivery of life-saving vaccines.

We hope to link up researchers during face-face meetings in Malawi. These interactions have the potential to spark new collaboration projects with other researchers based at UoG or MLW on related scientific areas.

Area of work: Research, Education, Employment

Project lead: Dr Kristinn Hermannsson
Contact details: Kristinn.Hermannsson@Glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Chancellor College, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, MaSP
Partner contact: Professor Winford Masanjala
Contact details: whmasanjala@gmail.com

Funding: Scottish Funding Council

Description of project

The project has two aims: 1) to promote an informed and effective discussion between academics and stakeholders in Malawi in order to strengthen the evidence base for policy making and 2) to identify remaining gaps in the evidence base in order to inform an application for a large collaborative research project. This is an inherently interdisciplinary problem, which straddles linguistics, education, public policy, labour markets and economics.

There are approximately 12 native languages in Malawi, but the Ministry of Education recently adopted an English-only language of instruction policy in the school system. English is favoured in the labour market and there are practical challenges involved in cultivating so many mother tongues in an under-resourced school system.

However, there is substantial academic evidence to show the detrimental impact which non-mother tongue instruction has on children's development. Therefore, the overall effect of this policy on skill-formation and labour market readiness of Malawians is not clear. It is quite conceivable that the emphasis on English at the expense of mother tongues may undermine children's education and ultimately be detrimental to the formation of the desired English language skills and labour market readiness.

The objectives of this project are to:

1. Strengthen the evidence base on the practical, educational and economic effects of language of instruction;
2. Create and strengthen a network of researchers to work on this important but complex area;
3. Strengthen links between researchers, policy makers and wider stakeholders

We will commission/produce the following reports:

• What language skills do employers want? (Qualitative primary research, Chiziwa)
• How does language influence outcomes in employment and self-employment? (Secondary quantitative analysis, Masanjala)
• How does English language instruction work in the class room? (Primary qualitative analysis, Chavula)
• What is the rationale for the current language policy? (Interviews and documentary analyses, Malawi Scotland Partnership)
• The reality of capacity constraints in Malawian education: What options are feasible? (Interviews and documentary analyses, Dzimbiri)
• Review of international academic evidence and policy discourse on the skills development impact of language of instruction (literature review, GU team)

Key successes and outcomes so far

A major success of the project thus far has been the development of the research partnerships within the consortium itself, and engaging with wider stakeholders in Malawi.

Future and ideas for partnership development

We would be keen to collaborate with others working on education and skills development issues in Malawi.

We are developing a larger piece of research to investigate the trade-offs which policy makers face regarding language of instruction in Malawi. This will highlight which language of instruction models could be feasibly implemented in Malawi that will contribute to sustainable development.

Area of work: Health, Research, Sport
Location of work: Blantyre

Project lead: Dr. Christopher Bunn
Contact details: Christopher.bunn@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit (MEIRU)
Partner contact: Professor Mia Crampin
Contact details: mia.crampin@lshtm.ac.uk

Funding: SFS GCRF
More information: www.meiru.info

Description of project

Researchers have studied the effects of recreational football training and football-based behaviour change programmes on health across the lifespan. Recreational football can increase fitness and muscle mass, and lower body fat and blood pressure. Football Fans in Training also demonstrated that a weight management programme delivered in football clubs engaged can help men lose weight and change behaviours in the long term. Thus, football-based health interventions have been shown to be effective at facilitating sustained health benefits amongst previously inactive men, who are often reluctant to engage in health interventions.

The evidence that football-based programmes reduce risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is European, and knowledge of how to facilitate them in low and middle-income countries is sparse. Such countries are experiencing a growing NCD burden, which could potentially overwhelm healthcare systems. Developing effective and acceptable interventions which can reduce NCD risks in these countries could potentially yield large public health gains. Further, MEIRU’s epidemiological data and experience indicate that Malawian men are under-engaged with health research and underserved.

This proposal aims to build on existing evidence of effective football-based health interventions in Europe to develop, implement and feasibility test a football-based health intervention in Malawi.

Using an action research methodology, informed by the 6SQuID approach to intervention development, we are working with the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) and two clubs (and supporters’ groups) to develop and test the feasibility of an NCD prevention programme for at risk male supporters. The project has four objectives/phases:

1. PLAN: To hold a 5-day workshop at FAM’s offices to initiate co-design of an NCD prevention programme with Malawian researchers, FAM officials and football club and fan group representatives.
2. ACT: To recruit to and deliver the NCD prevention programme in two Malawian football clubs.
3. OBSERVE: To collect detailed process data on how clubs recruit and deliver the programme, and collect before and after anthropometric, biomarker and self-report data from participants.
4. REFLECT: To analyse data and discuss findings with stakeholders and consider the next steps the group will take.

Key Successes and outcomes so far

The MaFANs programme has been designed, participants have been recruited, the programme is being delivered and post-programme data collection is due to commence shortly. Once the data is collected and analysed, we will work with our partners to determine the next steps. Our collective hope is that the project provides us with the learning necessary to develop and test MaFANs on a larger scale.

Future and ideas for partnership development

We think that the use of sports-based programmes for measurable health improvement can be developed further to encompass other sports and broadened to include women. We would welcome approaches to develop this work.

Area of work: Research, Health, Sport, Gambling
Location of work: Lilongwe

Project lead: Dr. Christopher Bunn
Contact details: Christopher.bunn@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit (MEIRU)
Partner contact: Professor Mia Crampin
Contact details: mia.crampin@lshtm.ac.uk

More information: www.meiru.info

Description of project

The sports betting industry is increasingly visible in Malawi, and it is highly likely that it engages men significantly more than women. International evidence, including from the wider SSA region, suggests that sports betting has the potential to contribute to significant individual and social harms, and undermine development progress through wealth extraction and negative impacts on wellbeing and mental health. In order to inform future research and policy, aimed at minimising such potential harms, this project will explore the narratives and ‘gambling careers’ of young Malawian men.

Our research will seek to recruit 10 men who gamble regularly on sports to participate in a semi-structured interview about their gambling practices.

• Inclusion Criteria: male, aged 18-35, bet on sports at least once a week, consent to participate in a semi-structured interview.
• Exclusion Criteria: women, men over 35, children, bet less than once a week, do not consent to participate in a semi-structured interview.

The interview will explore themes relating to: how the man became interested in gambling; their gambling practices (e.g. frequency, amount spent, type of sports they bet on, type of bets they place, where and how bets are placed, and who bets are placed with); their motivations for gambling; and how family and friends react to their gambling. We will also gather their impressions of the marketing and advertising of gambling services in Malawi, and the relationship these have with sports.

Key successes and outcomes so far

This study is currently undergoing ethical review.

Future and ideas for partnership development

We intend to use the data gathered during this project to inform future work aimed at reducing gambling-related harms. We would welcome interest from partners in developing this work.

Area of work: Health, research, art-based methods, hypertension
Location of work: Lilongwe

Project lead: Dr. Cindy Gray
Contact details: Cindy.gray@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit (MEIRU)
Partner contact: Professor Mia Crampin
Contact details: mia.crampin@glasgow.ac.uk

Funding: MRC UKRI
More information: www.cultureandbodies.com

Description of project

The prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as hypertension and diabetes is rapidly increasing in Sub-Saharan Africa countries like Malawi and Tanzania. In 2010, there were more than 2 million deaths from non-communicable diseases in the region, a 46% increase from 1990.

Many people in Malawi and Tanzania have greater access to Westernised (unhealthy) diets, and in some areas (e.g. towns and cities) opportunities for physical activity are reduced. These factors, together with traditional cultural norms, such as a larger body size being associated with respect and attractiveness, contribute to increasing risk of non-communicable diseases.

If interventions to prevent non-communicable diseases in Malawi and Tanzania are to be effective, it is essential they reflect local knowledges, perceptions and values. These are often deeply-rooted and unspoken, and thus inaccessible through traditional research methods, such as surveys and interviews. Community arts offer an alternative approach to allow researchers to explore people's cultural, emotional and historical beliefs and practices, and then to work with local communities to develop culturally-compelling NCD prevention interventions.

The project has six objectives:

1. To establish an international, interdisciplinary partnership of researchers, NGOs and artists working across the UK, Malawi and Tanzania on community arts-based non-communicable disease prevention.
2. To promote in-depth interdisciplinary learning and share knowledge, skills and expertise in relation to the real-world context of the project.
3. To work closely with local people in urban/peri-urban areas of Malawi and Tanzania in two pilot projects that will use community arts to develop an understanding of local knowledges, perceptions and values in relation to NCDs and NCD risk factors, and to co-create culturally-compelling NCD prevention intervention activities.
4. To develop a pilot methodological NCD prevention framework to support the application of community arts-mediated approaches to change the landscape of NCD prevention in Malawi and Tanzania.
5. To describe a programme of future work for the partnership in other settings in Malawi, Tanzania and elsewhere in SSA.
6. To engage with policy makers, NGOs, local community members, artists and other researchers, to raise awareness of:
   1. the need for culturally-situated and relevant interventions to address NCDs in local communities in Malawi and Tanzania;
   2. the role of community arts methodologies in developing these interventions.

Key successes and outcomes so far

Using community arts to explore NCDs and NCD risk factors has generally worked well. Engaging community members in developing a creative arts enquiry workshop protocol that has been piloted in both Malawi and Tanzania was particularly effective. Participants have responded enthusiastically to the methodology, which has succeeded in allowing all participants to have an equal voice, and encouraging those with alternative views about NCDs and NCD risk factors to air their opinions. Engagement of local arts organisations to help run the workshops has been beneficial to facilitate delivery. Finally, the input of biomedical scientists to ensure the messages used to develop the culturally-compelling intervention activities reflect biomedical evidence as well as cultural norms has been essential.

The main impact of the project locally will happen during the community dissemination events in July, but study participants have already engaged enthusiastically with the biomedically-informed feedback from the creative workshops and in using it to develop the messages they think are important for NCD prevention in their local communities.

Other important impacts include: capacity building among local social scientists and artists in using arts-based methods for NCD prevention; and extending all project team members’ interdisciplinary understandings.

Future and ideas for partnership development

We have submitted an outline proposal for a major year programme of work to extend and trial our methodology across Malawi and Tanzania from 2020. If successful, this 3-year £2 million programme of work will allow us to extend our research to other areas in Malawi and Tanzania, and to involve other academics in both countries. Specifically, the proposed programme will allow us to integrate our community arts enquiry methodology into the rigorous development of a hypertension prevention intervention, which will then be tested in a feasibility trial. This work will provide initial evidence of the potential of our approach to improve public health outcomes in Malawi and Tanzania.

The proposed programme will also provide funding to promote active involvement of key local and international stakeholders in arts-based NCD prevention, and to build capacity in arts-based health promotion through a training workshop targeted at health researchers across the SSA region.

At the end of the project, once we have finalised the community-arts based methodology and associated training, we will be in a position to work with our new partners to further share this approach via training workshops with relevant organisations. This joint approach will help us access different streams of arts-based public engagement funding to deliver these workshops to relevant audiences (e.g. NGOs, health services).

Area of work: Agriculture, Sustainable Development

Project lead: Dr Mia Perry
Contact details: Mia.Perry@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Abundance Worldwide, ArtGlo, Art House Africa
Partner contact: Dr Boyson Moyo
Contact details: bmoyo@luanar.ac.mw

Funding: GCRF-SFC Internal grants 2018-2019
More information: www.sustainablefuturesinafrica.com

Description of project

The Sustainable Futures in Africa (SFA) Network is an interdisciplinary collective that brings together researchers, practitioners and communities of practice that acknowledge the complex nature of sustainability. The SFA network consists of 5 research hubs: Botswana, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda and Scotland.

The specific objectives are as follows:

1. To discover opportunities in the disparities between ontologies of the global north and the global south inherent in international collaborations and global endeavours. (Theories)
2. To address the relationship between social, cultural, and ecological factors in sustainability in Africa through interdisciplinary research initiatives. (Methods)
3. To shape and support new opportunities for impact and inquiry that address locally articulated, socio ecological challenges. (Impact)

The partnership with LUANAR started in 2016. Over the last 3 years, the focus in Malawi revolved around understanding the interface between indigenous knowledge and nature of conventional research while unpacking challenges experienced and perceived by communities to insure a greater impact of research in local communities. A few projects were related to the challenges around the use of Drones in humanitarian and environmental research initiatives. This project engendered the opportunity for two Malawian hub members to study at the University of Glasgow: Ms Sharifa Abdulla (PhD) and Mr Stewart Paul (MS).

In 2019, the hub aimed to expand the network within Malawi. Meetings were held with the University of Livingstonia, University of Mzuzu, UNICEF Malawi, Church and Society, and LEAD.

Key successes and outcomes so far

Established in 2016, the network has grown to almost 50 active members; held three large international (Botswana 2017, Nigeria, 2018, and Uganda 2019) and two small regional symposia; and completed six pilot research projects. The network has significant influence (evidenced by a growing membership, publications, public speaking and partnership requests, social media activity, etc.). We have a growing track record of co-produced academic and media publications, documentaries, and public events. The demand for involvement in, and support from, the network is increasing monthly.

Future and ideas for partnership development

As started in 2019, the plan over the next years is to increase the number of projects related to Global Challenges, within the Malawi hub (and new partners) and across the SFA hubs. The team will build on their previous track record to reach more communities and involve a greater variety of expertise through different disciplines. The Malawian hub will host the SFA network workshop on “Community engagement in development-led research projects” in February or March 2020.

We are always looking for new collaborations or opportunities. We invite anyone with an interest in our work to visit our website and to get in touch.

Area of work: Creative Geovisualization
Location of work: Zomba and Dowa Districts

Project lead: Prof. Deborah Dixon
Contact details: Deborah.Dixon@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Abundance Worldwide
Partner contact: Dr Boyson Moyo
Contact details: bmoyo@luanar.ac.mw

Funding: Scottish Funding Council Global Challenges Research Funding
More information: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17445647.2019.1582440

Description of project

Motivated by a shared concern with what might be termed as ‘geo-violence’ in Malawi, where past and current geopolitical conflict, global capitalist development, land governance and management, and complex environmental crises associated with climate change intersect to effect a slow violence upon the body, as well as the communities of which those bodies are a part, four of our group – an artist working on creative Geographic Information Systems (GIS) (Nicholson), a geomatics scholar (Barrett), an environmental geochemist (Long) and a political geographer (Dixon) – are based in the same academic school (Geographical and Earth Sciences) at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, while a fifth person (Moyo) gained his PhD in Geography from this same school before returning to Malawi to lecture on natural resources and agriculture. As part of the broad-based ‘Sustainable Futures in Africa Network’, we were able to access the expertise of one of Malawi’s non-governmental organisation (NGO) leaders (Pullanikkatil). Given our shared concern for understanding the multiple stresses, both physical and social, impacting upon individuals and groups in Malawi, we visualised data of Likangala River Catchment in Zomba district and Tikondwe Freedom Gardens in Dowa district. This creative geovisualization process was documented in a journal article.

This project was an engineering, social and economic evaluation of food processing in the rural areas of Malawi and Kenya. The aim was to collect the information necessary for designing a clean and low-cost energy system for cogeneration of heat and electricity from agricultural waste to support food processing.

Background:

Agricultural activities are major contributors to many African economies. These activities require efficient downstream processes such as drying, roasting, boiling and refrigeration, which are all energy intensive and demand heat, electricity or both. Yet, severe energy issues in sub-Saharan Africa continue to hamper modernisation of these processes, stressing the economy, environment and public health of many African nations.

As a remedy, advanced technologies for thermochemical conversion of biomass are proposed to be combined with the state-of-the-art power-generation techniques. This results in a cost-effective integrated energy system, which takes biomass in the form of agricultural waste and converts it to heat and electricity with high efficiency and low emissions. The engineering applicants have strong track records in these areas. Nonetheless, knowledge of the local capacities, demands and challenges related to food processing industries in ODA countries remains as an imperative unknown. This calls for gathering information from the regional partners and evaluating the technical and social factors of the technology accordingly.

The essence of this study was to throw light on the differences between Kenya and Malawi in relation to technical, social and economic aspects of energy for food processing. The study aimed to understand the energy resources, availability, usage, cost, for food processing and its social and economic facets. This study is unique as it is multi-disciplinary, while other related research tends to be more narrowly focused. Addressing these various concerns will help provide a holistic light on energy issues and food processing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparing Malawi and Kenya gives insights into two economically different countries and provides insights to the similarities and differences when it comes to biomass use for cooking, which can provide understandings for policy recommendations.

Activities done:

Questionnaire surveys were conducted in Kenya and Malawi to collect information from farms, food processing units, local communities, governmental and other relevant organisations. The data collection fieldwork portion of the project began on 1 Dec 2017 and ended on 15 Jan 2018. Data analysis and writing up of the evaluation results was from January to June 2018. A total of 394 individual surveys were received from Kenya, and 137 from Malawi. A report was prepared and is online at University of Glasgow’s website.

Key successes and outcomes so far

The project has brought together people from various disciplines to critically reflect upon, and expand the contexts of, the data produced by diverse scientific expertise. Certainly, the story maps we are working on provide insights into the processes and events present at both Tikondwe Freedom Gardens and the Likangala River. But what we have striven to map using this particular medium is something of the practices that are undertaken, yet often glossed, in the knowledge production process itself, insofar as these sites become knowable within particular conceptual and methodological frameworks. In setting out to actively repurpose our datasets – to undertake a practice- led mapping of these datasets – we have also sought to experiment with knowledge production, producing small narratives of people and place that tell us as much about the nature of these epistemes as they do about the sites.

Future and ideas for partnership development

This project is now complete. Interdisciplinary work and story mapping would be of interest to team members.

Area of work: Drones
Location of work: Lilongwe, Machinga

Project lead: Prof. Deborah Dixon
Contact details: Deborah.Dixon@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Abundance Worldwide
Partner contact: Dr Boyson Moyo
Contact details: bmoyo@luanar.ac.mw

Funding: Academy of Medical Sciences

Description of project

Drones are becoming increasingly used in Malawi by diverse scientists and businesses working on environmental change and agriculture, as well as NGOs focused on health and education. Drones can carry cameras that can sense a range of environmental phenomena, and inform 3-dimensional maps, but can also be used to transport materials (including medical materials) from one location to another.

Within Malawi, efforts have been made to bring scientists and NGOs together with industry and state departments to develop drone capacity, culminating in the 2016 establishment of a 'drone corridor' by UNICEF and the Malawi Government. There remains the key issue, however, of integrating communities into these emerging drone geographies beyond 'sensitising' them to a drone presence or treating them as passive recipients of humanitarian aid.

Key successes and outcomes so far

The project funding was approved, and funds are waiting to be transferred to LUANAR Malawi. Tentatively a kick-off workshop will be held in August 2019. Progress would be shared once project is underway.

This year-long series of meetings and workshops directly addresses the question of how communities can be placed at the heart of drone practices by assessing: how community-led identification of problematics can be fed into drone research; 'how meaningful consent' in drone research can be developed; and how an inclusive sharing of drone practices and knowledges can be fostered.

Future and ideas for partnership development

Organizations working on drones are requested to contact Dr.Boyson Moyo for potentially be invited for engagement in this project.

Area of work: Sustainable Development, Community Engagement
Location of work: Mzimba District

Project lead: Dr Mia Perry
Contact details: Mia.Perry@glasgow.ac.uk

Partner organisation: Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Abundance Worldwide, ArtGlo
Partner contact: Dr Boyson Moyo
Contact details: bmoyo@luanar.ac.mw

Funding: GCRF-SFC internal grants 2019-2020

Description of project

This interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral project will increase the level of understanding of community perspectives, communication needs, and successful engagement tools for community integrated research and intervention in international contexts. The project builds capacity for researchers and aid organisation stakeholders, as well as community participants. A workshop in Malawi will follow a series of initiatives to gather lived experiences from these key actors in international and development-led research projects.

This initiative is a bottom-up approach that seeks to challenge and response to the too common top-down research agendas. To bridge the gap between research teams and communities, our main activity will be to build capacities through the development and distribution of a resource about community engagement in international – development led contexts for researchers and development workers in LMIC countries, as well as UK partners involved in the research teams. This will be achieved by co-designing and carrying out a workshop with the Malawian hub of the Sustainable Futures in Africa network and the local communities of Mzimba District – in Malawi.

The workshop will reflect the knowledge and experiences acquired across diverse contexts of community practice (including fishing, farming, education, healthcare, governance) from the perspectives of communities themselves, researchers, and development workers. The workshop will explore experiences in relation to methodological possibilities and result in a critical resource based on, and complementing, the model developed recently by the SFA network in their “Critical Resource for Ethical International Partnerships”. This resource looked at research partnerships across diverse disciplines and geographies and is presented as a short visual and accessible booklet available in printed or digital format (due to be published in Sept. 2019).

Key successes and outcomes so far

Progress would be shared once project is underway.