Innovation, Research Capacity Building and Applied Learning: The Canada-China Project For Vulnerable Populationsat Risk for HIV and STis in Shanghai, China

Open Access

Abstract

This is a book chapter published by UCT Press, available online: https://www.idrc.ca/sites/default/files/openebooks/588-5/index.html ; This chapter presents our experiences with capacity building developed across the course of a project to address vulnerable populations at risk for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STis) in Shanghai, China, otherwise known as the Canada-China Project. We describe this approach to capacity building as action oriented as it is grounded in hands-on, active and pragmatic skills building and real-time work experience rather than being passive, theoretical and academic. In this chapter, we argue that the capacity-building efforts of the Canada-China Project were successful in particular, and in great part, because of a national innovation-oriented policy environment known as China's National Innovation Capacity. This orientation to innovation created a context suitable for the project's action-oriented capacity building. While many of the mechanisms through which project activities operated may have met with resistance or discomfort given China's unique historical and political context, the widespread institutional and philosophical orientation towards innovation mitigated such resistance and created a fertile socio-political and policy context within which capacity building could unfold. This chapter reflects on the research capacity-building work of the Canada-China Project in light of these contextual considerations and the project's achievements, outcomes and novelty as well as lessons learned with regard to advancing our own understanding of capacity building. ; Funding provided by the Teasdale-Corti Global Health Research Partnership Program (IDRC, CIDA, CIHR and Health Canada), Grant#103460-045.