29 September 2026

Challenge Based Learning (CBL) is an immersive educational framework where participants actively engage with authentic, open-ended global or community issues to develop actionable, real-world solutions. Moving far beyond passive rote learning or simulated classroom exercises, CBL requires individuals to make real choices with tangible consequences. The framework repositions educators as collaborative partners or coaches, shifting the ownership of the educational journey directly into the hands of the cohort. By structuring education around multi-layered, lived challenges, CBL builds a natural connection between theoretical academic content and meaningful social action.

This approach is particularly powerful for fields like public health and implementation science, where turning research into real-world care is one of the greatest modern challenges. Through this framework, students develop the vital tools needed to move from evidence to action, addressing complex societal needs through three fundamental dimensions: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

The Three Phases of the Challenge Based Learning Journey

The contemporary, globally adopted CBL framework operates through three cyclical, deeply interconnected phases: ENGAGE, INVESTIGATE, and ACT. Throughout all three phases, participants continuously reflect on their choices, document findings, and share outcomes with the wider community.

1. ENGAGE

The process begins at a macro level and narrows down to a specific, localised call to action that is collaboratively defined.

• The Big Idea: The journey starts with a broad, globally relevant theme affecting society—such as Sustainability, or Non-Communicable Disease Prevention.
• Essential Questioning: Through collaborative brainstorming, students contextualise this theme by asking broad, probing questions. For example, a big idea like Health Equity might yield the question: "How do we make preventive health strategies accessible in resource-limited environments?"
• The Challenge: This phase culminates in a clear, actionable statement that demands a solution. An abstract question is transformed into a direct directive, such as: "Design and execute a localised peer-education framework to improve metabolic health awareness within our community."

2. INVESTIGATE

Once the challenge is locked in, participants enter a phase of rigorous academic and empirical research to bridge the gap between theory and frontline practice.

• Guiding Questions and Activities: Teams list everything needed to solve the problem, generating secondary questions that cover scientific, economic, or social variables.
• Rigorous Research: Research is conducted, local stakeholders are surveyed, regional health data is analysed, and domain experts are consulted. This phase satisfies traditional curriculum requirements, as core subjects—be it epidemiology, statistics, or behavioural science—must be mastered to thoroughly analyse the data.

3. ACT

The final phase demands moving from thought to practice, allowing students to master the practical tools needed to turn an implementation plan into reality.

• Solution Development: Teams synthesise their research to design evidence-based solutions that address structural issues rather than just individual symptoms.
• Implementation: Unlike case-study learning, where a project ends with a presentation slide, CBL requires a live rollout with an authentic audience. This might involve deploying a new digital health toolkit, launching a targeted public awareness campaign, or optimising an existing local care delivery network.
• Evaluation: After rollout, the concrete impact of these actions is measured, allowing individuals to iterate based on success, unexpected feedback, or failure.

Distinguishing CBL from Problem-Based and Project-Based Learning

Because CBL shares the active-learning ecosystem with Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Project-Based Learning, they are frequently confused. Understanding these differences helps institutions and cohorts maximise engagement during the process:

The Benefits of a Challenge-Centric Pedagogy for Learners

Embracing Challenge Based Learning yields multi-dimensional benefits that prepare individuals for the realities of modern professional landscapes:

• Sustaining Human Capability against Automation: In an era dominated by advanced algorithmic tools and automated text generators, CBL protects the core cognitive work of the human mind. Because the framework demands physical interaction, localised context, active community dialogue, and moral judgement, it cannot be bypassed by artificial shortcuts. It forces individuals to think critically, navigate human nuance, and make genuine ethical choices.
• Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Mastery: Real-world crises do not stay neatly within subject boundaries. A challenge surrounding non-communicable diseases quickly requires knowledge across biology, urban planning, politics, sociology, and economics. Students build cognitive flexibility by weaving distinct disciplines into a cohesive action plan.
• Fostering Essential Lifelong Skills: Through intense team dynamics, participants develop resilience, complex project management, emotional empathy, and transparent peer communication. Individuals learn that real knowledge is fluid, shifting away from a mindset focused on finding "one right answer" toward continuous self-regulated learning.

By framing education not as a sequence of topics to memorise but as a series of meaningful challenges to conquer, CBL transforms passive students into social innovators. It prepares them not just to pass exams, but to thoughtfully engage with, and improve, the world they live in.

Strategic Integration in IS4NCDs Training

Recognising its capacity to close the "know-do gap" in health systems, Challenge Based Learning has been strategically integrated into the upcoming IS4NCDs training modules. By embedding this pedagogy within the curriculum, the programme ensures that healthcare practitioners, researchers, and policymakers do not merely review theoretical frameworks, instead empowering context-driven cohorts to diagnose systemic bottlenecks, collaborate across multi-sectoral boundaries, and deploy live, evidence-based interventions directly into frontline African health infrastructure.

23 September 2026

The IS4NCDs consortium has decided to modify the delivery format of its upcoming pilot core module, Fundamentals of Implementation Science, scheduled to take place 5–9 October 2026.

To maximise accessibility and ensure that vital training in implementation science is available to health professionals across borders, the consortium has made the strategic decision to transition this training module from its original regional hybrid model to a fully online delivery format.

Initially, the programme was designed to combine broadcasted lectures with on-site, in-person teamwork across four specific African partner institutions: Copperbelt University, the University of Zambia (UNZA), Stellenbosch University, and the University of the Witwatersrand. However, removing geographic barriers altogether allows the project to support broader participation, enabling healthcare implementers, researchers, and policymakers to join the cohort irrespective of their location.

Bridging the "Know-Do" Gap

This foundational module is specifically designed to equip participants with the skills needed to bridge the "know-do gap" in health systems—the persistent mismatch between what is known to work in clinical research and what is actually delivered in frontline health services. Participants will learn how to diagnose implementation challenges and apply verified frameworks (such as CFIR 2.0 or RE-AIM) directly to real-world non-communicable disease (NCD) programmes drawn from their own professional contexts.

By shifting to a fully virtual environment, IS4NCDs aims to foster a diverse cohort of learners who can share unique regional insights, equity lenses, and implementation strategies from a wide variety of healthcare settings.

Key Module Information

• Dates: 5–9 October 2026
• Format: Fully online (lectures and interactive group sessions)
• Cost: Fully funded during this pilot phase (valued at ZAR 6,000 / ~EUR 300, with no course fees for selected participants)
• Academic Value: 7 Credits (ZQF Level 8)

Entry Criteria

The module is open to healthcare professionals from across the sub-Saharan African region who hold a Bachelor’s degree (NQF Level 7) in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, environmental health, biomedical sciences, or a related discipline. Alternatively, individuals holding a Level 6 Diploma with at least three years of relevant professional experience in a health service, policy, or programme management role will be considered on a case-by-case basis under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).

Current or recent engagement in health service delivery, programme implementation, management, or policy is strongly recommended, as course assessments directly utilise participants' own professional settings.

Don't miss the opportunity to join this fully funded cohort. The absolute deadline to submit your Expression of Interest is 27 September 2026.

21 September 2026

Translating clinical guidelines for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) into real-world practice requires a systematic approach to implementation science. To successfully scale up care, health systems must move beyond general public health frameworks and master the practical tools needed to turn an implementation diagnosis into a fully specified, costed, and evaluable programme, aligning strategy design with robust monitoring.

The Challenge of NCD Scale-Up in Resource-Constrained Environments

Non-communicable diseases represent a rapidly rising burden on health systems already stretched by historic infectious disease priorities. Yet, the implementation of proven NCD interventions remains slow and fragmented. Traditional public health approaches often overlook how an intervention is delivered within complex district health systems, leading to a failure to sustain or scale up effective care. Implementation science addresses this bottleneck by focusing explicitly on the methods used to promote the systematic uptake of research findings into routine practice. However, designing a delivery framework that is both theoretically sound and operationally viable requires specialised competencies that move beyond clinical expertise.

From Diagnosis to Strategy: Matching Barriers with the ERIC Taxonomy

An effective programme begins with a rigorous implementation diagnosis within the local clinic or community context. Rather than guessing why a clinical guideline—such as routine hypertension screening or diabetes follow-up—is not being adhered to, implementers must systematically identify specific institutional, behavioural, and resource-driven barriers.

A structured approach requires systematically matching these diagnosed barriers to evidence-based implementation strategies. Utilising the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) taxonomy, professionals learn to use a standardised language to select from dozens of discrete strategies—such as task-shifting, educational outreach, or appointing local clinical champions. This shifts health systems away from ad-hoc solutions and toward reproducible, targeted interventions suited to local realities.

IRLM: Integrating Theory of Change and Logframes

While many health professionals are familiar with traditional planning tools like Theories of Change and Logical Frameworks (logframes) often required by external funders, these models can fail to capture the complex, non-linear mechanisms of implementation science.

The core planning instrument for complex interventions is the Implementation Research Logic Model (IRLM). Understanding the distinct roles of these three frameworks allows implementers to master the IRLM to explicitly link selected strategies to their specific psychological or structural mechanisms, and finally to their downstream outcomes. The result is a fully specified, costed, and highly visual roadmap that provides absolute clarity on how and why an initiative is expected to succeed before capital is deployed.

Smart Data Systems Without the Frontline Burden

A well-designed strategy is meaningless without an evaluable framework that works in the real world. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) must be specialised for NCD environments where electronic registries may be nascent or fragmented. This requires meticulous indicator selection across three distinct dimensions: implementation outcomes (e.g., acceptability, feasibility), service outcomes (e.g., efficiency, equity), and client outcomes (e.g., clinical health status).

Crucially, health leaders must address the data requirements these indicators impose. This involves critically appraising what routine health information systems can realistically answer and knowing how to judge data quality. A major priority must be placed on balancing the need for robust scientific evaluation with the operational reality of the healthcare workforce, ensuring that data collection does not place an unsustainable burden on already strained frontline clinical staff.

Developing Local Expertise

For health systems grappling with a dual burden of disease, acquiring these precise technical toolkits is essential to transform clinical evidence into lasting impact. To help health professionals move from conceptual problem-solving to holding a concrete, costed, and rigorously structured delivery plan ready for real-world deployment, our Core training module, Designing, Monitoring & Evaluating Implementation Programmes, has been developed around these exact methodology steps. This upcoming training module guides participants through the practical application of the ERIC taxonomy and the IRLM to align strategy design with robust monitoring.

16 September 2026

Non-communicable diseases present the largest clinical and economic threat to Southern African healthcare systems, requiring a rapid shift from individual clinical interventions to structural public health solutions. While NCD epidemiology effectively quantifies regional disease burdens and lifestyle habits, these metrics are ultimately driven upstream by the social determinants of health. For frontline clinicians and policymakers across Southern Africa, mitigating this crisis requires implementation science to close the "know-do gap"—translating clinical guidelines into resilient, real-world healthcare delivery despite localised resource constraints.

1. NCD Epidemiology: Tracking the Regional Shift

Epidemiology provides the data-driven foundation for understanding how NCD distribution, frequency, and causal pathways are changing across the region. Unlike acute infectious outbreaks, NCDs are characterised by long latency periods, protracted clinical courses, and complex, multifactorial etiologies.

In Southern African populations, this burden is compounded by a stark epidemiological transition:

• The Dual Burden of Disease: Health professionals increasingly manage a complex convergence of chronic infectious diseases and metabolic conditions. Clinicians routinely treat patients presenting with concurrent HIV or tuberculosis alongside accelerating rates of type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
• The Genetic-Environmental Interplay: While genetic susceptibility heavily influences disease onset, rapid urbanisation and shifting dietary patterns across Southern African cities have dramatically elevated absolute cardiovascular and metabolic risks.

Regional epidemiological surveillance allows health systems to transition from reactive treatment models to predictive, targeted preventative care.

2. Determinants of Health: Looking Upstream

While clinical epidemiology identifies individual risk factors like body mass index (BMI), smoking, and poor diet, the determinants of health explain why these risks occur. Health outcomes are heavily shaped by the social, economic, physical, and political environments in which patients live and work.

• Socioeconomic Status: Deprivation directly correlates with limited access to nutrient-dense foods, safe recreational spaces, and timely medical intervention, worsening metabolic risks.
• Commercial Determinants: The aggressive expansion of ultra-processed foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, and tobacco into both urban centers and rural settlements drives the structural availability of harmful commodities.
• Systemic & Structural Drivers: Macro-level political configurations, environmental factors, and systemic economic inequities create entrenched health disparities that cannot be fixed by individual patient willpower alone.

When public health strategies treat NCDs purely as a consequence of personal lifestyle choices, they fail to address these root causes. Prescribing a rigid diet or complex medical regimen is futile if a patient lacks financial access to fresh food or lives hours away from the nearest operational clinic.

3. Implementation Science: Moving Evidence into Practice

The ultimate bottleneck in regional health is rarely a lack of clinical evidence; it is the know-do gap—the chasm between proven medical interventions and their real-world application. This is where implementation science becomes vital for Southern African health professionals.

Implementation science investigates the methods, frameworks, and contextual factors that influence how evidence-based interventions are successfully integrated into routine health systems.

The Evolution from Social Needs to Structural Change

Historically, healthcare systems addressed social determinants through basic individual screening and referral pipelines—such as referring a diabetic patient to local food relief programmes. While helpful for short-term relief, these actions merely scratch the surface of systemic inequity.

Modern implementation frameworks demand a shift toward multi-sector, context-aware strategies:

• Adapting to Resource Constraints: Translating high-level medical guidelines into practice requires subnational actors and frontline professionals to adapt interventions to local supply chains, staffing limitations, and cultural realities.
• Structural Partnerships: Health systems must act as anchor institutions, partnering with community coalitions, non-governmental organisations, and local leadership to integrate food security, clean water, and health education directly into clinical pathways.
• Optimising Care Delivery: Well-implemented clinical pathways—such as task-shifting NCD screenings to community health workers or integrating hypertension clinics into existing HIV infrastructure—drastically reduce systemic strain while maximising patient retention.

Future Directions for Regional Health Systems

Resolving the NCD crisis across Southern Africa requires looking beyond the walls of the clinic. Epidemiology maps out the scale and features of the threat. Understanding the determinants of health exposes the socio-political landscapes driving these risks. Finally, implementation science provides the practical tools needed to embed these insights into equitable, sustainable, real-world policy. Only by uniting these three disciplines can health professionals shift from temporarily managing chronic sickness to structurally generating long-term wellness.

Master the Mechanics of NCD Control

To equip health leaders with the tools needed to drive this systemic transition, expressions of interest are being accepted for the pilot of the IS4NCDs Core Module: NCD Epidemiology, Determinants of Health & Implementation. This specialised training is designed to translate academic theory into immediate workplace application, drawing directly on participants' own professional contexts for its practical assessments.

• Tentative Schedule: 26–30 October 2026
• Instructional Modality: Face-to-face simultaneously at Copperbelt University, the University of Zambia, Stellenbosch University, and the University of the Witwatersrand. One set of live lectures will stream into all four classrooms at once. Participants at each site will work through practical, challenge-based learning activities in person, facilitated locally by faculty at each institution.
• Cost: No course fees during the pilot phase (Value: ZAR 6,000 / ~EUR 300). PLEASE NOTE: Funding for travel, accommodation, and other costs associated with participation is NOT provided.

Eligibility & Admission Criteria:

• Direct Entry: A Bachelor’s degree (NQF Level 7) in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, environmental health, biomedical sciences, or a related discipline from a recognised institution.
• Prior Learning Pathway: A Level 6 Diploma with at least three years’ relevant professional experience in a health service, programme management, or policy role (considered case-by-case under Recognition of Prior Learning).
• Professional Requirement: Current or recent engagement in health service delivery, programme implementation, management, policy, or research is strongly recommended to facilitate the context-driven curriculum.

14 September 2026

Deploying evidence-based interventions for non-communicable diseases remains one of the greatest challenges in modern global health. While clinical guidelines and technical toolkits—such as the World Health Organization’s HEARTS and PEN packages—are widely available, their real-world delivery is frequently compromised. Robust protocols regularly falter when exposed to local clinic realities, resource constraints, and complex patient pathways.

To overcome these operational barriers, the healthcare sector is increasingly turning to a powerful, interdisciplinary methodology: Quality Improvement Practice integrated within Implementation Science.

While Implementation Science provides the systemic frameworks to diagnose barriers to care, Quality Improvement delivers the practical engine required for local adaptation and execution. For healthcare professionals, mastering the intersection of these two fields has transformed from an optional asset into a critical institutional requirement.

The Strategic Alignment: IS Frameworks and QI Execution

Implementing sustainable NCD care pathways requires a sophisticated understanding of both macro-level systems and micro-level clinical environments. Rather than viewing them as competing disciplines, effective healthcare systems integrate them sequentially:

• Implementation Science: Focuses on the macro and meso levels of healthcare. It provides the frameworks to diagnose systemic roadblocks and helps leaders select the most appropriate overarching strategy.
• Quality Improvement: Operates at the micro level of daily care. It provides the agile engine needed for frontline adaptation, rapid iterative testing, and the design of sustainable, local workflows.

Without Implementation Science, quality improvement efforts risk becoming isolated, small-scale projects that fail to achieve institutional scale-up. Conversely, without pragmatic QI tools, implementation blueprints remain purely theoretical, failing to gain traction among frontline clinical staff. True integration ensures that evidence-based interventions are not just introduced, but permanently embedded into daily workflows.

Why NCD Pathways Demand a Specialized Skillset

Unlike acute medical conditions, managing chronic illnesses like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancers introduces unique operational complexities that traditional top-down rollouts cannot solve:

• Multifaceted, Longitudinal Care: Effective NCD management relies on a complex web of clinical decision support, provider feedback, and patient self-management infrastructure over several decades.
• High Contextual Vulnerability: A care protocol designed for a well-resourced urban facility rarely functions seamlessly in an overstretched community clinic without deliberate, localized calibration.
• The Behavioural Component: Successful implementation requires shifting the ingrained habits of both busy clinical teams and patients navigating lifelong therapies.

Navigating these challenges requires specialized training. Healthcare leaders must know how to deploy diagnostic tools like process mapping, design reliable data feedback loops, and utilize iterative testing cycles safely within live clinical environments.

Resolving the Capability Shortfall

The demand for professionals who can seamlessly merge the structural rigor of implementation research with the agile, human-centric focus of frontline quality improvement is surging. Health ministries, international NGOs, and clinical networks are actively seeking leaders capable of designing resilient, scalable NCD care pathways.

Our upcoming intermediate training module, Quality Improvement Practice in Implementation Science for NCDs, is explicitly engineered to build these competencies. Moving beyond abstract theory, the curriculum provides a deep, practical dive into the exact methodologies required to translate global clinical guidelines into sustainable local operations.

In this specialized training, you will master the practical toolkits necessary to lead high-impact health interventions, optimize care delivery metrics, and drive lasting systemic change in NCD management.

9 September 2026

Mastering implementation science requires integrating quantitative metrics with qualitative narratives to bridge the gap between clinical research and real-world health impact. By utilising frameworks such as convergent parallel, explanatory sequential, and exploratory sequential designs, researchers gain a comprehensive toolset that eliminates dangerous analytical blind spots in public health.

The Defining Strategy: Integration

Mixed methods is more than just running two separate health studies. Its value relies entirely on integration—intentionally connecting medical metrics and community narratives. While quantitative data tells you what is happening to patient outcomes on a large scale, qualitative data explains why and how healthcare workers and clinics are adopting the intervention.

Three Ways to Structure the Research

Depending on your project's goals, this course will teach you how to deploy three primary implementation frameworks:

• Convergent Parallel: Track clinical health data and conduct staff interviews simultaneously to evaluate if the real-time implementation process matches your expectations.
• Explanatory Sequential: Gather quantitative clinic metrics first to identify broad trends—such as a drop in programme adoption—then use qualitative focus groups to uncover the underlying reasons.
• Exploratory Sequential: Interview a community first to understand local cultural health needs, then use those insights to design and test a scalable, quantitative public health survey.

Key Advantages of This Approach

Deploying these mixed frameworks offers significant benefits for public health initiatives:

• Higher Validity: Cross-validates clinic outcomes through multiple community data sources.
• Holistic Insights: Prevents the critical human element from being lost in big health data.
• Persuasive Results: Combines hard health statistics with compelling patient stories to win funding.

Fundamental Challenges to Consider

While powerful, executing a mixed methods design requires navigating specific operational demands:

• Resource Heavy: Managing both clinical data and fieldwork requires careful, rigorous planning.
• Dual Expertise: Requires learning both statistical tracking and qualitative thematic analysis.
• Conflicting Data: Teaches you how to resolve discrepancies when numbers and stories do not align.

The Takeaway

Relying on a single data type creates dangerous analytical blind spots in public health. By pairing statistical precision with descriptive depth, this course provides the comprehensive, actionable toolset you need to bridge the gap between research and real-world health impact.

Ready to elevate your NCD research impact?

The pilot of our intermediate training module Introduction to Mixed Methods Research in Public Health is scheduled for 12-16 October 2026. We are now accepting expressions of interest. This training, led and delivered live online by the Stellenbosch University, introduces mixed methods research and its application to key public health questions. Learners will explore the theoretical foundations, methodological designs, and practical considerations of this approach.

Upon successful completion of this NQF Level 9 module, participants will have gained the knowledge required to design, conduct, and evaluate their own mixed methods public health research, earning a Certificate of Competence and 30 General Continuing Education (CEU) credits.

There are no course fees to participate in the pilot phase. This training is valued at ZAR 6,000 and is fully funded. Slots are limited. Participants from across the sub-Saharan African Region with following qualifications are encouraged to apply:

• NQF Level 7 with relevant work experience (supported by a portfolio), or
• NQF Level 8 (Honours/Postgraduate Diploma level).

7 September 2026

Implementation science offers the vital framework needed to combat the rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Southern Africa by systematically closing the gap between clinical guidelines and real-world practice. For health professionals and recent graduates in the region, mastering this discipline is critical. While traditional medical research focuses on what clinical treatments work, implementation science investigates how to deliver those treatments sustainably and equitably within resource-constrained African health systems.

Historically overshadowed by infectious diseases, NCDs—such as cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, chronic respiratory illnesses, and cancers—are rising sharply across Southern Africa. Managing these long-term conditions requires sustained, coordinated care, functional referral pathways, and an uninterrupted medication supply chain. Translating international guidelines into local clinics remains notoriously difficult because health systems routinely face systemic constraints. An implementation science approach addresses this by shifting focus from individual-level clinical treatments to system-level solutions, ensuring that proven interventions are successfully embedded into routine care.

The Five Core Factors of Implementation Success

To effectively design, manage, or evaluate chronic care programmes, healthcare professionals must navigate five core operational pillars:

• Context: Local conditions decide a programme's success. An identical protocol can succeed in one facility but stall in another due to the surrounding environment. Implementation science rigorously maps inner factors (like clinic culture, staffing, and clinical workflows) and outer factors (such as national health funding and regional drug supply lines).
• Frameworks: Frameworks act as the structured tools used to assess that context and predict how it will affect an implementation. Rather than guessing why a rollout is struggling, teams use these descriptive systems to identify hidden barriers, choose the right steps, and map the relationships between different clinic constraints.
• Implementation Strategies: These are the active, deliberate choices made to train staff, adapt interventions, and change clinical behaviour to improve a specific outcome. In Southern Africa, pragmatic strategies include task-sharing (shifting NCD screening from doctors to community health workers) or integrating chronic care tracking into existing HIV/TB clinic infrastructure.
• Fidelity: This measures whether a programme stays true to its original design as it is delivered. In chronic NCD care, programmes frequently suffer from 'fidelity drift'—a gradual, unnoticed gap where staff quietly slip back into old habits (like skipping the required rest period before a blood pressure reading) under daily work pressure.
• De-Implementation: Modernising NCD care does not just require adding new guidelines; it demands the distinct operational skill of actively withdrawing outdated, obsolete, or low-value clinical practices from circulation. Turning off an old routine takes as much deliberate effort and strategy as starting a new one.

Implications for African Health Systems

For the next generation of healthcare leaders in Southern Africa, addressing the growing chronic disease burden requires looking beyond the pharmacy shelf. Implementation science acts as a diagnostic lens, showing exactly where a delivery chain breaks down and testing localised strategies to reinforce the weakest links. By embedding these five pillars into everyday healthcare delivery, Southern African health systems can move beyond theoretical guidelines to achieve real, equitable, and lasting health gains for NCD patients.

Build Your Expertise: Fundamentals of Implementation Science

Expressions of interest are now being accepted for the upcoming fully funded pilot training programme. If you are a health professional or recent graduate looking to diagnose implementation challenges in real NCD programmes drawn from your own working context, you can apply directly for the foundational core module:

• Core Module: Fundamentals of Implementation Science (ZQF Level 8, Face-to-Face)
• Lead Institution: Copperbelt University
• Focus: Establishing what implementation science is, how it differs from efficacy research or quality improvement, and where it sits on the continuum from discovery to delivery.

To learn more about the curriculum and submit your expression of interest, visit the Training Portal today.

1 September 2026

We are now accepting expressions of interest for the IS4NCDs training programme in implementation science applied to non-communicable disease care. The Core Modules pilot is scheduled to begin in the first week of October 2026.

The Training is Fully Funded, No Course Fees

Valued at ZAR 6,000 each, the modules are fully funded; there are no course fees for the pilot phase. Please note that the funding does not cover travel, accommodation, or other costs associated with participation. These costs are not included, so you’ll need to budget for them separately

Who This Is For

The training is intended primarily for professionals in public health, internal medicine, and primary care, though other relevant applicants are considered. Applicants across sub-Saharan Africa are welcome to submit an Expression of Interest.

How the Core Modules Pilot Works

As outlined in our earlier announcement, the pilot runs across three modules (dates are tentative and subject to change):

• Fundamentals of Implementation Science, 5-9 October 2026
• NCD Epidemiology, Determinants of Health & Implementation, 26-30 October 2026
• Designing, Monitoring & Evaluating Implementation Programmes, 2-6 November 2026

Training will be delivered via a hybrid model streamed simultaneously into classrooms at Copperbelt University, the University of Zambia, Stellenbosch University, and the University of the Witwatersrand, with in-person, team-based practical work facilitated locally at each site.

Slots are Limited, Submit Your Expression of Interest Early!

For more information and to register your interest, please visit this link: IS4NCDs eHub, or scan the QR code.

11 August 2026

When IS4NCDs set out to pilot its Core Modules, it faced a practical constraint common to multi-country training programmes: how to deliver the same rigorous, faculty-led training across four institutions without either repeating the same module four times or asking faculty to travel constantly between sites.

The answer is a hybrid delivery model built specifically for this challenge.

A Shared Lecture Stream, Delivered Locally

Beginning the first week of October 2026, the three Core Modules

• Fundamentals of Implementation Science
• NCD Epidemiology, Determinants of Health & Implementation
• Designing, Monitoring & Evaluating Implementation Programs

will be piloted simultaneously at Copperbelt University, The University of Zambia, Stellenbosch University, and the University of the Witwatersrand.

One set of live lectures streams into all four classrooms at once. From there, participants at each site work through practical, challenge-based learning activities in person, facilitated locally by faculty at each institution. The result is a single, consistent curriculum delivered at scale, without sacrificing the in-person, team-based work on which implementation science training depends.

Why This Model, and Why Now

The approach reflects a requirement built into the project from the outset: each Core Module needs to be piloted at all four partner institutions, not just one. Streaming shared content once, rather than repeating it site by site, was the model that met that requirement most efficiently, whilst preserving space for locally facilitated, hands-on practice at every location.

What’s Ready Behind the Scenes, and What Comes Next

Accreditation and Continuing Professional Development approval processes are progressing at each partner institution, with several already at an advanced stage ahead of October. Ethics approval for the project’s evaluation protocol has already been secured through the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, giving partner institutions a shared foundation as they complete their own local reviews. A working group with representation from all seven consortium partners is also shaping the project’s regional learning eHub.

IS4NCDs will begin accepting Expressions of Interest soon. The Core Modules, scheduled for piloting in early October and valued at approximately ZAR 6,000 per module, are fully funded — there is no cost to participants during the pilot phase.

29 July 2026

IS4NCDs held its monthly virtual meeting on 27 July 2026, bringing together representatives from all partner institutions to review progress towards the piloting of its implementation science training modules, set to begin in October.

The meeting highlighted encouraging momentum across the programme. Institutions leading the Core, Intermediate, and Advanced modules each reported on their preparations, with accreditation and continuing professional development (CPD) applications progressing at several universities. A number of modules have already secured short-course approval and CPD-eligible status, reflecting growing institutional recognition.

Work also continues on a centralised online hub. The platform is being built to streamline access to the learning modules. Prospective learners will soon be able to access programme information — including eligibility information and module goals — as well as register interest.

In addition to the piloting update, the meeting featured progress reports on two related workstreams. A master’s thesis contextualising the IS4NCDs competency framework is nearing completion, with results expected to be shared with the consortium later this year. Preparations are also continuing for the programme’s Executive-track course, with a full protocol update anticipated at the next consortium meeting.

Looking ahead, partner institutions reaffirmed their commitment to a collaborative teaching model, in which faculty from across the consortium will contribute to delivering each module — including a shared Challenge-Based Learning component woven throughout the curriculum to ensure participants apply what they learn to real-world NCD care implementation challenges.

With piloting now fast approaching, here is the confirmed target schedule for the three Core Modules:

• Module 1 - Fundamentals of Implementations Science: 5-9 October 2026
• Module 2 - NCD Epidemiology & Determinants: 26-30 November 2026
• Module 3 - Design, Monitor & Evaluate: 2-6 November 2026

Further updates on the modules and registration of interest will be shared in the coming weeks.