This is the seventh episode of our series, Spotlight on community engagement and involvement (CEI): leaving no one behind.

Our host, Heidi Surridge, is joined by authors of the NIHR/Mesh CEI online course, An Introduction and Practical Guide to CEI in Global Health Research - Gill Black, Managing Director and Head of Engaged Research at the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation, Alun Davies, Senior Programmes Manager at Mesh, The Global Health Network, and Rodrick Sambakunsi, Science Communication and Public Engagement Practitioner at Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme. Together they discuss how the course can support research teams and collaborators to achieve inclusive CEI and provide tips for leaving no one behind in CEI.

Get to know our speakers

Gill Black has worked in global health for over 25 years and joined the CEI field in 2011. Having lived in South Africa since 2002, her CEI experience is rooted in sub-Saharan Africa. Gill's practice supports action-oriented community based participatory research, often incorporating creative methods including storytelling, photography and mapping approaches. Gill works to advance equitable partnerships between researchers and at-risk communities, to strengthen co-production and policy engagement. Since 2018, her CEI focus has been to inform environmental disaster risk management and better understand the mental health impacts of climate change. Gill is passionate about building capacity for engaged research in low and middle income countries (LMICs).

Gill is co-lead author on Module 2 and lead author on Module 3 of the course.

Alun Davies leads Mesh, a platform for community engagement with health research. Working with coordinators embedded in African, Asian, Latin American, and Caribbean research institutions, Mesh strengthens engagement practice by sharing skills, knowledge, and resources. A key achievement is establishing a large Kenyan school engagement programme, enabling young people’s insights to shape health research implementation. Al has led several multi-country engagement projects, including a WHO technical working group on Good Participatory Practice for Covid-19 research and conducting rapid research to identify social and behavioural priorities for WHO guidelines on mpox research.

Al is lead author on Module 4 of the course

Rodrick Sambakunsi is a science communication and CEI specialist, with over 15 years of practical experience. For the past 10 years, Rodrick has worked for Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust on a number of different roles developing and implementing innovative CEI strategies. More recently, Rodrick has led an implementation of an African-led collaboration of creative engagement practitioners, community groups, experts, and policy makers to promote dialogue and research about vaccines.

Rodrick is lead author on Module 1 of the course.

Please note this episode was recorded in late 2024. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

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