Advice, training and tools overview

The CRC aims to support UCT clinical researchers to conduct cost-effective, efficient and compliant studies. Rather than feel isolated, staff are encouraged to contact the group to discuss their concerns, or simply browse the available resources and links.Staff from the CRC are also the South African Regional Faculty for the Global Health Network (including Global Health Trials), a comprehensive free resource for clinical researchers. The aim of this collaboration is to make South African-relevant information freely available.

Advice

Principal Investigators, particularly if they are working within a limited budget and with a fluctuating staff complement, may have to repeatedly build their team’s experience and processes. We therefore provide free ad hoc advice by email, phone or face-to-face to answer queries from any member of the team. Such enquiries may be a simple one-off question about a particular subject or a more extensive consultation to discuss the project in its entirety.

Training

The CRC can help Principal Investigators identify appropriate external training opportunities for their team. We are also developing in-house material, with a focus on the practical, operational, aspects of clinical research. We are also currently conducting a Global Health Trials project to develop a flexible, sustainable, blended-learning programme for academic and/or public health clinical research staff by enhancing current Global Health Trials online content. Keep an eye on our webpages for further details of our training plans.

Tools

In addition to advice and useful links, we are building our own freely-available repository of internationally and locally relevant resources to help UCT staff operationalise their study. Some of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are mandatory if UCT is sponsoring your study, however anyone may use them as templates for developing study-specific SOPs. SOPs are complemented by a growing series of factsheets. These are intended to provide basic information about practical issues that are typically hard to find answers for. We would value suggestions from UCT staff about further topics that would benefit from a factsheet. Please see our toolkit for these resources. 

Key areas to be supported by the CRC through our advice, training and tools include:

• Research governance (how to work within the applicable regulations, principles, and practices to ensure quality of research)
• Identifying and applying for funding
• Study design & protocol development
• Operational conduct:
  • Regulatory processes
  • Project and quality management
  • Data management
  • Investigational product/pharmacy-related issues
• Study analysis, reporting and writing papers