CAP-LUSO: Capacity building to enhance US federal funding compliance and administration in Mozambique and strengthenening exchange ofknowledge betweeen PALOP research centers - PROJECT SUMMARY Centro de Investigaçao em Saude de Manhiça (CISM) – Fundaçao Manhiça is one of the leading research centers in southern Africa. Created in 1996 and established as an independent Mozambican institution in 2006, CISM promotes and conducts biomedical research in priority health areas such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, and respiratory disease. Demonstrating CISM's commitment to biomedical research, the institution served as a RTS Phase III Clinical Trial site for the malaria vaccine. For two decades, CISM has demonstrated the capacity to develop proposals, raise funding, and establish collaborative partnerships. In 2016, CISM obtained National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 funding for the first time as prime awardee. For this study, CISM led a consortium of three international collaborators from low- and middle-income country institutions. Additional, within the last year, CISM received a second R01 as a prime awardee and built a collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) as an R01 sub-awardee. While CISM has been effective in implementing the aforementioned NIH projects, administrative support flaws were highlighted in daily operations and grants management. This serves as a challenge and learning opportunity for the CISM grants management team. As a sub-awardee to BCM, this presents an opportunity for CISM grants management administrators to be trained by BCM grants management staff to reinforce the skills necessary to ensure CISM is in full compliance with US federal funding rules and regulations. The project, “CAP-LUSO”, will provide the opportunity for BCM CISM trainees to share learned best practices with CISM program teams and other Portuguese-speaking African countries – in a “train the trainer” format. Experienced grants manager, Carole Amroune, will serve as the principle investigator and lead the CAP- LUSO project. She has nine years' experience working at CISM parent entity, ISGlobal, and will be based in Manhiça to ensure an appropriate training plan that is aligned with CISM administrative grants management needs. She will also support reorganization of the CISM Projects Unit. Her experience managing United States federal funds in foreign contexts and institutions will provide additional knowledge sharing opportunities. The two CISM senior administrative staff to receive training from BCM will organize internal training sessions to transfer knowledge to the CISM Projects Unit, administrative assistants, and principal investigators. Further, to broaden the impact of CAP-LUSO and share best practices beyond the G11 grant funded training opportunity, CISM will organize a United States federal funding grants management workshop for Portuguese-speaking African country institutions. The training imparted will enable Portuguese-speaking African country institutions to confidently pursue NIH funding in their respective countries and impact the health of their beneficiaries.
