It takes a community: a landscape analysis of global health research consortia

BACKGROUND: The increased recognition of the core role of effective primary healthcare has identified large gaps in the knowledge of components of high-quality primary healthcare systems and the need for resources positioned to better understand them. Research consortia are an effective approach to generate evidence needed to address knowledge and evidence gaps and accelerate change. However, the optimal design of consortia and guidance on design decisions is not well studied. We report on a landscape analysis to understand global health research consortium models and major design decisions that inform model choice. METHODS: We conducted a landscape analysis to identify health-related research consortia typologies and explore decision processes leading to their design and implementation. We identified and reviewed 195 research consortia, extracted data on organisation, characteristics and operations for 115 and conducted 14 key informant interviews representing 13 consortia. We analysed interviews using thematic content analysis using results to develop categories of major design choices and research consortia models, structures and processes. RESULTS: Across a wide range of research consortia, the structure and function were determined by nine key design decisions that were mapped to three domains: scope: including mission and area of focus; organisational structure: including role and location of the core entity, choice of leader, governance and membership eligibility and responsibility; and funding decisions: including the funding source for research consortia operations and the funding sources and process for consortium research. DISCUSSION: Research consortia showed important heterogeneity across the nine decision points studied and based on their goals, needs and resources. These decisions and the three emerging domains (scope, organisation and funding) offer a potential framework for new research consortia and inform the design of a proposed primary health care research consortium intended to accelerate research to improve primary health care in LMICs.