First policy brief from ENBEL: co-design in climate change and health research
How can co-design in climate change and health research be most successful? This policy brief provides key messages for research funders and future research projects in this field based on lessons learned from Climate, Environment and Health research projects funded by the Belmont Forum.
Co-design involves everyone working together from conceptualisation to design, through implementation to dissemination and communication of research findings.
This policy brief summarises collaborative activities and lessons learned from Climate, Environment, and Health (CEH) projects funded by the Belmont Forum. The featured projects focus on worker's health, infectious disease control and early warning, nutrition, maternal health, and local community collaborations. Activities for co-design encompass a range of activities and should begin with the mapping of local stakeholders.
Key messages:
Research projects need to be funded for longer periods to build and maintain relationships between researchers and stakeholders in order to develop meaningful evidence for policy
Co-design can be locally led; funders can review need for travel, with consideration of the social and environmental costs and benefits from balancing travel and remote work
Accept critiquing approaches in proposals
Encourage proposals where objectives are defined by local communities
Revise measures of success for research projects that include communities
Provide funding mechanisms and build pathways for the translation of successful research into practice
Co-design can be an essential condition of funding
Co-design requires proper investment in terms of time, funding and in people
Consider compensating communities for their time spent co-designing
Fund projects with potential to scale up through new partnerships
Use co-design to provide inroads to adaptation and mitigation actions in real world contexts
This policy brief is the first in a series of policy briefs produced by the ENBEL project network of climate change and health research projects funded by the EU and Belmont Forum under the lead of Sari Kovats and Julian Natukunda (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), and Francesca de'Donato (Lazio Regional Health Service, Rome, Italy).
