The funding for this follows the establishment in 2014 of the Social Innovation in Initiative (SIHI), a TDR collaboration with the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. SIHI has conducted case studies on 23 innovations as a first effort at understanding what works and what does not.
This current grant funds a research collaboration consortium to contribute to the Initiative. The 4 institutions make up an inter-institutional, North-South, Africa-Asia partnership:
- Makerere University, School of Public health, Uganda. Principal Investigator: Dr Phyllis Awor;
- University of Malawi, College of Medicine, School of Public Health, Malawi. Principal Investigator: Dr Don Mathanga;
- University of the Philippines Manilla, College of Medicine, School of Medicine, Philippines. Principal Investigator: Prof Noel Juban;
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. Principal Investigator: Prof Rosanna Peeling.
Each of the partners bring different skills and experiences, and are expected to learn from each other, as well as furthering their research efforts and extending the partnership by mentoring other regional universities interested in social innovation. The grant is managed by TDR social scientist Johannes Sommerfeld and Programme Manager Beatrice Halpaap.
Related to this, Johnson & Johnson has recently committed to further support the Bertha Centre to help build the capacity of health social innovators in the global south. Through SIHI and with additional support from Johnson & Johnson, the Bertha Centre will be able to build social entrepreneurship skills, implement and test plans and innovations, design monitoring and evaluation schemes and provide mentorship . This will greatly leverage SIHI’s efforts.
