Human and Institutional Capacity Building

A key goal of Nutrition Innovation Lab is building research and academic capacity within the host country.  The Nutrition Innovation Lab seeks to provide young host country professionals with the education, training and research support they need through scholarships, workshops, trainings, and publications. The Nutrition Innovation Lab Asia hosts In-country, Multi-sector Stakeholder formals, Training Workshops, and supports short term and long term training for students, academics, and practitioners.

Long term Training

The Nutrition Innovation Lab supports young professionals in accomplishing an MS or PhD degree either at a US institution or within the host country.  Since 2011, we have supported 54 students, 30 from Nepal and 24 from Uganda in the achievement of their degrees in Health and Nutrition.

Short term Training & Workshops

The Nutrition Innovation Labs have supported Ugandan and Nepalese several training workshops and short term training courses.

Scholarships and Support

Among other programs, the Nutrition Innovation Lab is working in collaboration with Makerere University to design and implement a modulated short course in Public Health Nutrition Practices and Programming aimed at filling in curricular gaps in the current set of educational offerings across Uganda. Through short courses students will be equipped to tackle nutritional issues in a multi-faceted and systematic way. These courses are being offered online with a customized version of Tufts University’s online learning system  (TUSK), which is an open source platform for learning and content management.

Achievements

  • The Nutrition Innovation Lab held the7th Annual Scientific Symposium in Kathmandu. A total of 459 attendees including Nepalese policy makers, academics and young Nepali scientists attended the symposium.
  • Two students from Tufts University were supported for their internship in Mozambique in the Summer of 2018. Also, 42 household enumerators, 8 anthropometrics and 8 phlebotomists were trained to collect samples. 
  • 20 Nepalese students were trained on the Second National Workshop on Design and Implementation of Intervention studies in Nepal in April 2019.
  • 29 Ugandans and 30 Nepali students have attended the Boston Bangalore Nutrition Collaborative training in Bangalore, India since the first year of the program in 2012.
  • The Nutrition Innovation Lab supported 24 Ugandan and 30 Nepali MS and PhD students.
  • The Nutrition Innovation Lab has supported 14 Ugandan students to complete their MS and MPH degrees at universities in Uganda.
  • 100 Nepali professionals were exposed to rigorous scientific methods at the 1st annual Scientific Symposium.
  • 30 government officials attended a workshop on Evidence-Based Policy making for Nutrition in Uganda in 2013.
  • 40 Nepalese professionals attended training on issues in public health nutrition, grant writing and research proposal development for future RFAs during 2013.
  • A total of 29 Nepali professionals were trained in workshops in 2012.