SHARE Phase 3
We wanted to update you on SHARE since we have some good news: SHARE is back for a third phase!
Rather than winding down at the end of 2018 as planned, we will continue until June 2020 to ensure our research is impactful.
During Phase 1 of SHARE we supported dozens of research projects across a broad range of themes and locations. In Phase 2 we built on the success of Phase 1 but streamlined our approach to focus on four themes (WASH and nutrition, urban sanitation, complementary food hygiene and links to oral vaccination for enteric diseases) in Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Kenya.
Our recent ‘end of phase II report’ gives a broad overview of SHARE’s achievements so far.
The research findings from the second phase are now being published and SHARE Phase 3 will be about ensuring that a broad range of audiences hear about the findings and that they have impact on relevant policies and practices.
We will be holding local, national and global level events to showcase our findings and make them accessible and useful for different research users. Relevant research users might be operating at a practice level, for example designing and implementing a new intervention, or at a policy level, for example, shaping the direction of future investment in WASH research or creating or changing policies relating to WASH. At the same time, we also want to make findings useful and accessible for the communities who participated in the research.
During Phase 3 we will also be heavily focused on developing the capacity of our SHARE Research Fellows and partner institutions – MITU, MEIRU, CIDRZ, GLUK and the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, through WaterAid – to continue producing world-leading WASH research. We will be introducing the SHARE Research Fellows and their ongoing work with SHARE in posts coming soon.
Underpinning all SHARE Phase 3 activities is a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system designed to keep track of the influence of SHARE research on the WASH sector and other relevant sectors, such as maternal child nutrition or vaccines. Our M&E processes reinforce our accountability to our funders, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), as well as the broader network of stakeholders with whom we engage. We hope to be able to use our M&E systems to tell stories about the positive changes our research has contributed towards.
As we enter this new phase of SHARE, we have modified the SHARE team. The major studies supported by SHARE are led by Principal Investigators and Research Fellows in our African partner institutions (mentioned above) with a small team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine providing support and oversight. This includes Fred King (Project Manager), Joanna Esteves Mills (SHARE CEO), who is being covered by Cath Beaumont during her maternity leave, Oliver Cumming (Research Director) and myself, Marni Brennan (Research Uptake and Monitoring and Evaluation Officer).
I’m new to the team and you can find out a bit more about my background here.
We will be keeping you to up to date with SHARE’s progress throughout Phase 3 but in the meantime if you have and questions or suggestions, please get in touch with us via our website or our Twitter feed!