Investing in African research training institutions creates sustainable capacity for Africa: the case of the University of the Witwatersrand School of Public Health masters programme in epidemiology and biostatistics

A descriptive cross-sectional survey of the 70 students registered for the masters programme in epidemiology & biostatistics from 2000-2005 was conducted. Data were collected from self-administered questionnaires.Sixty percent (42/70) of students responded. At the time of the survey 19% of respondents changed their country of residence after completion of the masters course, 14% migrated within Africa and 5% migrated out of Africa. Approximately half (47%) were employed as researchers and 38% worked in research institutions. Sixty percent reported research output, and four graduates were pursuing PhD studies. Government subsidy to higher education institutions, investments of the University of the Witwatersrand in successful programmes and ongoing bursaries for students to cover tuition fees were important for sustainability.Investing in African institutions to improve research training capacity resulted in the retention of graduates in Africa in research positions and produced research output. Training programmes can be sustained when national governments invest in higher education and where that funding is judiciously applied. Challenges remain if funding for students bursaries is not available.The African region carries a high and disproportionate burden of the world's health problems but finding appropriate solutions to them is complex [1]. One of the contributing factors is a lack of African research capacity to conduct local, relevant research [2,3]. Africa demonstrates an uneven geographical spread of research capacity, and there is a dearth of published research done in Africa for Africa [4]. Only 0.1-0.2% of research articles published in the top 50 biomedical journals between 1995 and 2002 had an African first author [5] and only 1.7 - 7.7% of articles published in the six highest ranking journals on tropical medicine from 2000-2002 were generated exclusively by scientists from countries with a low human development index [6]. Strengthening the research ca