COHRED, in collaboration with the Swiss Commission for Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE) hosted a parallel session at the Geneva Health Forum 2018, entitled “Increasing fairness and impact of research partnerships”.
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Speakers for this session included Carel IJsselmuiden (COHRED), Robert Terry (WHO/TDR) and Jon-Andri Lys (KFPE). The session was moderated by David Beran (University of Geneva). David Beran opened the session and set the scene for discussion about research partnerships and improving fairness in them.
Following this, Jon-Andri Lys presented the KFPE 11 Principles and 7 Questions, a set of guidelines designed to help stakeholders to think about and ensure that collaboration is undertaken in a manner that is fair and promotes good relations between those involved. Following from this, Carel introduced the RFI as a system which fills the gap between guidelines and practice, and highlighted some of the benefits it can provide to all stakeholders.
Additionally, he spoke about the progress of implementation thus far, and introduced Rob Terry from WHO/TDR, who published their first RFI report in March 2018. Rob then described the experience of writing an RFI report, as well as the resulting benefits. Carel IJsselmuiden then went on to discuss the RFI Reports written by 3 Senegalese institutions, and how the results from these could help in directing and improving Senegalese policies regarding research.
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This was followed by several questions from the audience, which were answered by the panelists. Overall the session was successful and provided the audience members with an overview of an existing guideline, the RFI and some institutional experiences of its implementation.