Enhancing Research Uptake and Policy Engagement in the DELTAS Programme (Enhance DELTAS)

Enhance DELTAS was a programme led by the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) which provided research uptake and policy engagement support to awardees of the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science (DELTAS) Africa initiative, led by the African Academy of Sciences. Enhance DELTAS worked with the first and second DELTAS Africa programmes to enhance the capacity of individuals, support DELTAS institutions in creating enabling environments for policy engagement and research uptake, facilitate interaction between researchers and policymakers, and contribute to the field of Evidence-Informed Decision-Making (EIDM) through peer-reviewed publications.

Objectives:

1. Develop the capacity of DELTAS individuals in designing and implementing policy engagement and research uptake strategies to maximise the impact of their research;
2. Support DELTAS institutions to create an enabling culture for strategic stakeholder engagements and research uptake;
3. Facilitate formal and informal interaction between researchers, policymakers and other decision-makers; and
4. Contribute to the evidence-base in the field of evidence-informed decision-making.

The programme used face-to-face workshops, online self-learning materials including videos, interactive webinars, toolkits, and talks with and by policymakers. The programme will develop robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework so that the programme can be improved during implementation, the changes, as a result of the programme, can be assessed, and the knowledge from implementing the programme can be shared with the EIDM community.

Enhance DELTAS worked in two phases. In Phase I, we worked with the current DELTAS Africa programme, and in Phase II built on the experiences of Phase I to work with those awarded the DELTAS Phase II programmes from 2021.

1. PHASE 1: ENHANCE DELTAS I – Training of Individual Early Career DELTAS researchers in Policy Engagement and Evidence Uptake
2. PHASE 2: ENHANCE DELTAS II –Supporting Development of Institutional Policy Engagement and Research Uptake Strategies

Testimonials:

• Policy Engagement and Evidence Uptake Workshops: Beatrice R. Nassanga
• Policy Engagement and Evidence Uptake Workshops: Samuel M. Adadey, Ph.D.
• Policy Engagement and Evidence Uptake Workshops: Mary Obiyan, Ph.D

The DELTAS Africa initiative was funded by the Wellcome Trust.