Table 1.

Elements of CARTA, its purpose, if it was included in in-kind estimation or not and reasons for exclusion

Programme component	Purpose	Nature of contribution	Costs included in analysis	Reason if excluded
Four-month-long, face-to-face Joint Advanced Seminars (JAS)* bringing all fellows in a cohort together for interdisciplinary training with an international teaching faculty	Formal structured interdisciplinary training for PhD fellows to supplement individual university-based discipline-specific learning	Labour time for facilitators	Yes
		Teaching venues, internet connectivity, accommodation	Yes, estimate extrapolated from comparison events held in commercial venue
		Library access, access to other academic programmes and university-based activities and infrastructure	No	Data not available
Partners Forum (PAF)—2 days of face-to-face meetings to review CARTA activities, strategy and performance	Management of the programme, ensures transparency and collective decision-making	Labour time of partners	Yes
		Venue and physical infrastructure	No	No comparator to extrapolate costs from
Board of Management meeting	Decision-making and programme oversight	Labour time of board members	Yes
		Venue and physical infrastructure	No	No comparator to extrapolate costs from
Focal persons’ activities	Coordination of all university-based CARTA activities including: peer review of PhD applications, supporting PhD fellows, communication about CARTA to wider institution and M&E reporting	Labour time of focal persons (a reasonable estimate of this was made as actual time across all institutions was not always collected and varied by institution so an average was assigned to each institution)	Yes
		Infrastructure costs	No	Data not available
Supervisors’ workshop*	Enrich supervision, provide protected time for supervisor and PhD fellow during JAS 2	Labour time at workshop for supervisors and facilitators	Yes
		Venue and physical infrastructure	No	No comparator to extrapolate costs from
Faculty and Staff Annual Seminar (FAS)*	Build skills and knowledge about roles and activities to support research in higher education institutions	Labour time at workshop for participants and facilitators	Yes
		Venue and physical infrastructure	No	No comparator to extrapolate costs from
CARTA curriculum planning meetings	Develop and review PhD curriculum for each JAS and other workshops and trainings	Labour time, venue and infrastructure	No	Varies as the programme matures; very time intensive during start-up and did not want to skew results
CARTA vice-chancellor’s meeting	Ensure CARTA is relevant, promote institutionalisation	Labour time and venue	No	Does not occur annually so would skew annual estimate
Fee waiver for staff doing PhDs at own institution	Statement of commitment of university to own staff development	Cost of fees	No	Varies year on year from institution to institution over the programme period
Additional time contributed by codirectors	Required to ensure programme leadership and quality	Labour time attributable at full professor level	No	Not collected so difficult to verify or reproduce results

*No preparation time or travel time included in the analyses, varies too much by individual participants.

CARTA, Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa; M&E, monitoring and evaluation.