In recent years IPIS has published several publications in collaboration with local African organisations. Such cooperation has allowed us to share know-how from over 30 years of research experience while benefitting from our partners’ networks and understanding of local issues.
Although IPIS’ research assignments are often limited to a few months, we are increasingly trying to improve our working relationship with organisations and individual researchers in Africa. Through intense collaboration on specific reports, IPIS helps building the capacity of local researchers because the collaboration becomes an exercise. Furthermore, when a report is published, we help local researchers to gain access to stakeholders and interested publics in Europe and the US.
However, to ensure that our relatively short collaborations with local partners have a lasting effect on their know-how and skills, we have developed a series of learning modules. IPIS teaches the most relevant of these modules during 1-3 days workshop organised at the outset of a new research project. The subsequent execution of joint research guarantees that the partners can immediately practice the skills they have acquired through the workshop during a relevant exercise.
‘Planning and Running a Research Project’ is the basic module. The text you currently hold describes the most important dos and don’ts when preparing and writing a report. More specialised modules, focussing on particular types of research or specific research skills build on this module and are more suitable for advanced publics.
‘Planning and Running a Research Project’ explains how to execute a research project by zooming in on its three major phases. The first is preparation and planning. The second is conducting the actual research and analysis. In a final phase the analysis and conclusions are written down in a report. For each of these phases we give essential advice and practical tips. In a workshop setting, we alternate the theory of this little handbook with practical customized exercises.
The IPIS Capacity Building Modules are co-funded by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Division Development Cooperation.

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