Building review capacity in Rwanda

SRN's story begins in Rwanda. The network launched in December 2022 through the University of Rwanda and the University of Lagos — and the Rwandan partnership has shaped how SRN thinks about building capacity ever since: not as a one-off workshop that leaves when the trainers do, but as something that takes root locally.

Beyond the one-off workshop

A single training event can teach a room full of researchers a great deal and still change very little, because the knowledge leaves with the people who brought it. SRN's approach is deliberately the opposite. Training is paired with mentorship through live reviews, resources stay open and available long after a session ends, and the aim throughout is to leave behind researchers who can teach the method themselves.

How capacity takes root

In practice that means an early-career researcher does not just attend a course — they are supported through their own review, with an experienced mentor helping them navigate the methodological choices that textbooks cannot fully prepare you for. When that review is finished, the researcher has both a completed piece of work and the confidence to guide the next person through the same path.

Having a mentor who had done this before meant I stopped second-guessing every methodological choice. My review is stronger for it, and so is my confidence.

This is how a network grows rather than merely delivers: each researcher who learns to do the work well becomes a point from which the capacity can spread further. What began between two universities is, by design, meant to keep extending — country by country, colleague by colleague.