Connecting the Dots - Higher Education and Science for a Healthier World The main aim of our programme is to strengthen the institutional capacity of the “Laboratoire de Référence des Mycobactéries”  (LRM) and “Centre de Recherche en Reproduction Humaine et en Démographie’s” (CERRHUD). This will allow them to contribute to an improved quality of the health care service delivery for bacterial bloodstream infections, tuberculosis and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in Benin. 
A country-wide network will be created to monitor antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to report this information to the national level, while the already existing national tuberculosis network will be continued.  To enable the institutes to keep up with the ongoing and future digitalization trends, bioinformatics capacity will be strengthened at LRM and CERRHUD’s IT and the electronic data system will be optimized. In addition, research capacity at institutional and individual levels will be strengthened with two PhD trajectories and methodological short courses.  
To improve the knowledge and practices of current and future health staff, district level managers and policy makers, blended course modules will be developed on the containment of AMR, quality improvement in the field of maternal and neonatal health and the basic skills needed to conduct operational research. These will be taught through an online training platform and will be complemented with face-to-face trainings.  
New knowledge will be obtained through research projects on the molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis, AMR and SRH. Moreover, context-based policy research will be conducted in the field of (adolescent) SRH, following a mapping of the national policy research landscape. Finally, a national network for operational research on SRH will be initiated to promote the development of joint research projects. This newly gathered knowledge will contribute to the elaboration of evidence-based health policies and strategies in the country. 
 The Global Synergy Programme aims to increase the impact of health research through synergy and networking. This will be pursued via three strategic axes. The first axe enables change through scientific networking. By the realisation of a Thematic Global Network (TGN) Health, climate change and urbanisation and Technical Capacity Networks (TCN). The second axe enables research performance, ownership and leadership for sustainable development through a Synergetic Research Capacity Fund (SRCF). The last axe unleashes the full potential of the thematic Joint Strategic Framework “Higher Education and Science for Sustainable Development (JSF HES4SD) through synergy and learning together with partners such as VLIR and Ares.

The three strategic axes will be translated in outcomes. These outcomes are strongly linked to the strategic goals (SG) of the JSF HES4SD.

The programme includes activities related to these three strategic axes. The first activity is the development, coordination and organization of network meetings and workshops concerning international mobility, scientific support and guidance, specific research costs, etc. 

The second activity is the creation of a Synergetic Research Capacity Fund, with the possibility of EDCTP3 participation and coordination. This would serve as seed funding for partners to initiate or to join pilot research projects, which function as a steppingstone to large-scale international projects. It would enable partners financially to participate in relevant collaborative research projects. The fund would give cross-cutting support to partners in all areas of research management. 

The third activity is the development of new knowledge, insights and tools related to the collective learning topics identified in the JSF HES4SD. Such as Getting Research into Policy and Practices, decolonization, monitoring and evaluation of scientific collaboration and small synergy projects.
 Improving the health of a population is a visionary goal. Particularly in DRC, which is disproportionately affected by health problems and poverty. The longstanding partnership between ITM and its Congolese partners, Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB), Centre de Recherche en Santé de Kimpese (CRSK) and Ecole de Santé Publique (ESP) and their unique expertise has taught us that the resilience of a health system contributes to making it more responsive, accessible, and efficient. Thereby improving people’s access to quality health care, as well as the system’s preparedness and ability to respond to emerging diseases.
We work through a participatory and equal partnership aim to strengthen individual and institutional capacities. One of the basic conditions of this partnership is the need for co-creation, the shared responsibility of our three partners, and their embeddedness in the relevant networks. Hence, synergies are vital to reach this goal on both a national and an international level. By taking advantage of this possibility, that early stakeholder identification in this process can be the premise of a shared and participatory action strategy.
At the core of our activities, the development of different platforms (administrative, technical, clinical, epidemiological, interdisciplinary One-Health…) will contribute to increasing individual competences in research methodologies in various fields (biomedical, clinical, epidemiological, public health and social sciences). This will allow our partners to grow into centres of excellence; being able to provide their specific expertise to produce valid research results and translate them into evidence-based policies that address specific health problems through the development of services for society and allowing the strengthening of quality of services, as well as the amplification of the availability of services such as diagnostic tools. Reaching towards a situation that honours the principles of equity. The present intervention supports the control of Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT or sleeping sickness) in DRC, which mainly affects the rural poor. The intervention will contribute to Belgium’s international commitment, which, together with BMGF, took the lead in 2017 to eliminate sleeping sickness. Combined with other interventions in support of HAT control, this support should lead to the interruption of HAT transmission by 2030. In contrast to other interventions in the multi-year program between ITM and DGD, research will be limited. However, the expected impact on the population is high and the lessons learned could also be useful for the Congolese health system.  
Following the declining prevalence of the disease in the last years, strategies must be adapted to allow further progress. The introduction of more targeted and diverse approaches applied through this intervention, will increase the chance to detect remaining hotspots of transmission and increase insight in the remaining disease transmission. Innovative strategies that are adapted to specific contexts will enable to achieve a better coverage, which is a key element in ensuring that elimination of transmission can be reached.  At the same time, quality assurance will be reinforced.
 The Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro (CRUN) and ITM have a longstanding partnership that gradually moved from an initial phase of capacity strengthening, towards the current institutional collaboration with an emphasis on joint research and education. A second collaboration with Centre Muraz started during the previous program, targeting vulnerable populations with a focus on sexual and reproductive health. The program brings together the next areas of expertise: malaria, antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic use, and sexual and reproductive health. Each component will work closely together according to the same common results. The strengthening of the transversal social sciences component at CRUN will allow us to include the socio-economic context. To reach policy and practice, we will work on the following specifi