Scientific collaboration is often perceived as mutually beneficial. When research questions are developed collaboratively, collaboration during the research itself can indeed be mutually beneficial. This is not the case when a researcher arrives with their own agenda and wants human subjects to participate in their research.
We often see foreign researchers proposing research collaborations with priorities, methods, and timelines that are far removed from the needs, methods, and deadlines that are feasible in an environment such as Lacor Hospital, which, let's face it, is not a research hospital.
Uganda, like many of its regional peers, has a research prioritisation structure. All research projects, even retrospective data collection, must be the subject of detailed proposals. The Lacor Hospital Ethics Committee (which for a long time was the only one in northern Uganda) must approve all proposals before forwarding them to the National Council for Science and Technology, located in the capital Kampala. For foreign researchers, this entire process involves delays and potentially costs that can be burdensome.
| In research, certain negative local consequences are invisible to foreign researchers. For example, during the early years of the AIDS pandemic, when testing was not widely available in Africa, foreign researchers offered tests as part of research projects aimed at better understanding the spread of the disease. However, telling a woman that she was HIV-positive was tantamount to a death sentence—firstly, because it was known that treatment would have been available in the West; and secondly, because she would be driven from her home by her husband, who was probably the primary source of the infection. "Better knowledge of the disease" only caused harm to the populations studied. |
The approach aims to ensure positive impacts on national development while avoiding negative consequences as much as possible.
The type of research that the hospital wishes to conduct and is able to conduct, with the participation of foreign researchers, is operational in nature: to better understand local diseases and identify effective and sustainable solutions to concrete problems in diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. This requires in-depth discussion with hospital managers in order to clearly define the research objectives (the health problem, methods of direct observation and data collection in the field) and the roles and responsibilities of local staff who will be responsible for implementing any changes resulting from the project and ultimately improving access to care and the quality of services. Simple and adaptable methodologies are preferred, as the main challenge is not so much a lack of knowledge about what needs to be done, but rather a severe shortage of the human and financial resources needed to do it.
