Table 3.

Reconsidering the enterprise: New critical reflections on health research capacity strengthening

1. The organisation of US public health funding:

How might HIV programming (under PEPFAR and USAID) and the research capacity strengthening initiatives (funded under the NIH) achieve their individual goals and establish synergy between their efforts with regard to a sustainable local ecology of knowledge production?

2. Research to policy translation:

Are US researchers prepared to partner with Southern institutions for research to policy translation capacity strengthening? While reward structures and additional institutional structures within US universities do not reflect translation as a priority, US researchers are likely to have difficulty building translation skills.

5. Reflexivity & humility:

Partners must consider the potential that research capacity strengthening represents for uncritical transfers of Northern institutional, research, and intervention paradigms. We highlight, as examples, the individual-behavioural approach to public health promotion that has predominated in US public health for decades and the assumption that the research component of a national health system is best located in the university context.