One of the main objectives of the Scinnovent Centre is on strengthening skills and shaping attitudes. Recognizing that for actors to remain competitive they need to constantly learn new skills and update their knowledge bases, the training and capacity building programmes addresses this objective.

These training courses are developed through a three – stage process which includes:

• Identifying constraints facing the end-users, young professionals and decision-makers through an interactive and participatory process
• Seeking solutions for these constraints in collaboration with both national and international partners
• Providing advice, training and tailored made products and services that solve the identified constraints.

The Centre has designed several training programmes and has previously organized and conducted trainings for different stakeholders.

Pushing forward this agenda, the Scinnovent Centre conducted a training workshop for University researchers on 28 October to 1 November 2014 at the Bomma Inn in Eldoret. The training was organized by the  College of Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at Moi University for three days, and focused on ‘grant writing and effective communication with policy makers’. Targeted at senior researchers and post graduate students at the Institute, the objective of the workshop was to enhance their capacity and skills to produce high quality proposals as well as enhance their proficiency in effective communication with policy makers.

Expected outcomes from the training

The training was expected to equip the participants with skills to:

• Apply the principles and strategies for effective communication with policy makers to inform and influence planning, policy making and implementation of public health interventions
• Apply the principles and innovative strategies to design and write proposals with higher funding potential in health system research, one-health, monitoring and evaluation of programmes relevant to public health
• Develop competencies in developing collaborative grants involving public and private stakeholders
• Strengthen institutional approaches to sustainable engagement of stakeholders including the Ministry of Health, for effective dissemination of study findings
• Mentor junior faculty and public health students in grant writing and experiential approaches for packaging and disseminating research products to appropriate audiences
• Determine the next steps towards online implementation of health systems research and Monitoring and Evaluation curricula

Dr. Maurice Bolo, Director, the Scinnovent Centre was the lead facilitator for the session on ‘effective communication with policy makers’. Using an approach that emphasized on practical participation of the workshop participants, Dr. Bolo engaged them in a step by step process of producing a policy brief and how to effectively communicate these for policy influence. Based on these steps, the participants engaged in plenary presentations of their key policy messages from their research of choice.

Dr. J.P.R Ochieng’ from the Consortium of National Health Research (CNHR) took the lead in facilitating the session on ‘producing quality research proposals with higher funding potential’.