Building Research Capacity in Nepal

Building research capacity is vital to improve services. ICEH will partner with Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh (NNJS), a network of hospitals that provides 80% of Nepal’s eye health services, on a 4-year research capacity strengthening project, commencing in mid-2025.

Nepal, with a population of nearly 30 million, has demonstrated good progress in eye health care delivery over the past four decades, resulting in reduced prevalence of vision impairment and blindness. However, the country currently has very limited eye health research capacity, with very few people trained to undertake research.

With support from Velux Stiftung, and guidance from ICEH, NNJS will establish a core research team in Kathmandu to support research activities across the NNJS network of 27 eye hospitals and 157 eye care centres across the country.

ICEH will provide training and mentorship to the NNJS research team, including technical aspects of evidence synthesis, epidemiology, biostatistics and health economics, as well as support to manage research grants. This team can then initiate, design, conduct, analyse and report research focused on the eye health needs of the country.

The project will utilise a large pool of existing data at the national and institutional level that is not currently being analysed. During the four years we will develop several research projects within the hospital network, leveraging existing infrastructure and personnel to support data collection, addressing high-priority questions.

For more information on this project please contact jacqueline.ramke@lshtm.ac.uk