A Second 5 Years!
CISMAC will continue as a Centre of Excellence for another 5 years!
Hovedinnhold
This last year, CISMAC underwent a resource intensive evaluation process. In the spring of 2017 CISMAC submitted a comprehensive report covering the Centre’s activity for the first 3 ½ years. At the end of May 2017, there was a site visit to Bergen at by members of the Evaluation Committee. In the autumn of 2017, the Evaluation Committee presented their reports and recommendations for the 13 cohort SFF-IIIs.
Midterm Evaluation - main recommendations
The Evaluation Committee concluded that CISMAC’s scientific activities, the research governance, and the strategy were of excellent quality, but that there was room for improvements. The two main recommendations were to create stronger horizontal linkages between research teams and projects and to use a unifying strategic focus to select new studies. CISMAC (along with three other SFFs) was asked to present a revised strategy in 2018, after which RCN would decide whether or not it would receive funding for another 5 years.
CISMAC not only fully endorsed these two main recommendations, but was also appreciative of the other very useful recommendations suggested by the committee, including its mention of the importance of strengthening capacity at all partner institutions to ensure that the consortium is sustainable and able to continue conducting excellent research even beyond its 10 year RCN funding period.
Horisontal Linkage Initiatives
CISMAC has begun initiatives to increase interactions between partners. These include face-to-face workshops, web-based seminars, and providing increased support for collaborative publications and proposal writing.
- Webinar series
- Bergen Summer Research School 2018 - Fair priority setting in global health was one of 6 courses offered
- PhD course in Applied Logistic Regression taught by Stan Lemeshow and others
The response to these initiatives has been very positive and additional initiatives are still under development, such as the establishment of a PhD track in intervention and implementation science and engagement in multi-centre studies. CISMAC is also sharpening its research focus to further improve the scientific quality of its activities.
A constructive, positive process
Halvor Sommerfelt, the Centre Director, and Ingvild F. Sandøy, the Centre Deputy Director, say that they found the whole evaluation process to have been of excellent quality and genuinely aimed at strengthening CISMAC’s research and capacity strengthening efforts. They also add that CISMAC’s researchers greatly appreciated the constructive advice, including the report’s final statement which emphasizes the importance of institutional support for CISMAC’s research activities beyond 2023.
Read more from RCN's website.
Background
According to the Research Council of Norway’s (RCN’s) website, their Centre of Excellence (SFF) programme gives Norway’s best scientists the opportunity to organize their research in Centres. The 10-year funding aims to enable these researchers to attain ambitious scientific goals. Although SFF funding is for 10 years, the second 5-year period funding depends on a successful midterm evaluation at the end of the first 5-year period.
For the midterm evaluation, RCN appoints a specific evaluation committee for each Centre. The committee bases its evaluation on the background material provided by the Centre and their impressions from a site visit.
The midterm evaluation report includes a list of concrete recommendations for each Centre. In addition, each report concludes with a main recommendation:
- Continue the Centre.
- The Centre must take corrective actions.
- Terminate the centre.
More information about the SFF evaluation process.
