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Engaged research is reshaping how global health challenges are understood and addressed by bringing communities into every stage of the process. At CERI, this approach is helping to build more grounded, context-driven solutions for climate and infectious disease risks in vulnerable settings.

text: Dr Gill Black  photo: Ameera Crew

As a former infectious diseases immunologist and geneticist, I was fully immersed in  my work. My scientific studies on malaria, tuberculosis and HIV in Kenya, Brazil, Malawi and South Africa, carried out over 18 years, kept showing me a crucial gap in global health research: the need for stronger community engagement and involvement (CEI). I transitioned into the CEI field in 2010, when I co-founded the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation (SLF), a not-for-profit research and engagement organisation based in Cape Town. In founding SLF, my intention was to facilitate community engagement and community-based participatory research across a broad range of pressing public health issues affecting South Africa and the region.

Since then, I’ve been contemplating, practising, writing about, and learning from what is now widely known as ‘engaged research’, and my perspectives on this field have continued to grow.

I approach my engaged research  practice through a transdisciplinary lens, aiming to support equitable academic–community partnerships and multi-stakeholder participation. This approach recognises the value of different forms of evidence and expertise in global health research.

It involves facilitating knowledge exchange among interdisciplinary researchers and non-academic actors, including affected  communities, individuals with lived experience, representatives of civil society, and policymakers. From my point of view, the exchange of knowledge across academic and non-academic groups helps to democratise research prioritisation and decision-making.

Taking an engaged research approach to health research requires methodological innovation and exploration. In my practice, I draw on different participatory methods and tools that often involve facilitating  visual, creative and arts-based activities. I have found that participatory visual methods, such as digital storytelling, help to ensure that relevant voices are expressed, articulated and integrated at the right moments. Their outputs have the potential to meaningfully influence the direction of research and possibilities for societal impact. When using visual methods in research, it  is vital to be aware of the potential for stigmatisation and to safeguard anonymity and confidentiality.

Engaged research practice also requires close attention to the local context in which you are working. Contextual differences in language, cultural  beliefs, religious practice, stakeholder interaction, and the way policymakers are engaged have significant implications for the who, when, what, where and how of transdisciplinary approaches and multi-stakeholder participation in health research.

Broadly speaking, principles of  engaged research mean engaging and involving an array of non-academic actors throughout the entire research life cycle, at different points in time. This spans collaboration in agenda setting, research design, generating and analysing  data, interpreting and disseminating findings, in addition to formulating, piloting and rolling out evidence-based interventions and adaptation strategies. This bold, justice-focused worldwide vision presents vital opportunities for us to better understand what it takes to practise engaged research in vulnerable settings in an ethical, effective and sustainable way. It also presents significant scope to learn about policy engagement, especially as complex global health challenges cannot be addressed through a one-size-fits-all approach to policy and decision-making, and contextualisation is central to success or failure.

Through our co-leadership of the Social Science Unit (SSU) at CERI, Dr Astrid Treffry-Goatley and I aim to strengthen the transdisciplinary and participatory nature of CERIÂ’s work. The impacts of climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events are diverse and far-reaching, including the escalation of existing and emerging infectious diseases.

There is an urgent need to  implement climate adaptation strategies that work in the most at-risk settings. Integrating the experiences, insights and suggestions of people who have been affected, and who are most at risk of the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, will help ensure  that intervention strategies are more grounded, accessible and contextually relevant, and can be evaluated by those who need them to work.

We also aspire to support other scientists at Stellenbosch University and beyond through teaching and training. The Public Squares and African STARS initiatives present valuable opportunities to reach these goals.

It has been hugely rewarding to see engaged research in global health grow so extensively over the past two decades, as evidence of its necessity and value has become increasingly apparent.

Every day, new ground is being broken and boundaries are being pushed. It truly is a motivating and inspiring time to be working in this field. Of course, there are myriad challenges, and as always, there is so much to learn. I am thrilled to continue contributing and learning through my fellowship with CERI, and honoured to do so in partnership with Astrid and the SSU team.

WELCOME,  DR GILL BLACK

We are delighted to welcome Dr Gill Black to the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI). An engaged research specialist with a background in immunology and infectious disease research  spanning over two decades, her early career included work on malaria, tuberculosis and HIV across Kenya, Brazil, Malawi and South Africa.

In 2010, she co-founded the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation (SLF), a Cape Town-based non-profit focused on community engagement and community-based participatory research across pressing public health challenges. Her work centres on advancing equitable community–academic partnerships, using  participatory and creative methods to ensure that the voices and lived experiences of affected communities are meaningfully integrated into research and decision-making.

At CERI, she co-leads the Social Science Unit (SSU) with Dr Astrid Treffry-Goatley, where she focuses on strengthening transdisciplinary research and multi-stakeholder engagement, particularly in the context of climate change, environmental risk, and infectious disease.

 

News date: 2026-05-13

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