Page 112 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

Slimmer, but Not Lacking Gray Matter: The MRC, 2012–2021

Research

Between 2012 and 2021 the foci of the 26 new research units – 6 intramural and
20 extramural – established directly by the MRC itself or with its financial backing
at universities or research institutions bear testimony to how extensively Karim’s
argument had been taken on board by the MRC in the wake of revitalization, viz.
that extramural units were more likely than intramural studies to produce top-level,
breakthrough research. In his view, surveillance studies, which characterized much of
research done by the intramural units, ‘explained the extent of the problem, [but] it
does not find new solutions’.
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Apparently equally accepted was his contention that biomedical projects involving
laboratory and clinical research would, at that point, probably raise the MRC’s
reputation higher internationally than those in the broad field of public health.
‘Sometimes the answer does not lie in public health research’, he maintained, ‘but
in some area of basic laboratory research in conjunction with public health research.
The MRC’s approach has been more to apply public health methodology than to ask
and answer the important questions. We need directly to exploit local strengths and
competitive advantages … Simply doing that which is obvious will mean doing what
everyone else is doing and failing to have a high impact.’
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This meant that, quite unlike the situation in the first two decades after 1994, from
2012 new research units with a public health orientation numbered just 5, compared
with the 21 new units with a biomedical, clinical or laboratory-based focus. To
encourage ground-breaking research, the MRC continued to oversee them with a light
hand. One world-ranked unit director lauded this policy enthusiastically, explaining,
‘The long-term, flexible nature of SAMRC funding made all the difference [to my
research] … It’s about giving people relatively unrestricted funding because you trust
that they will do good research and, most importantly, use the research to train good
people … We have populated local institutions with good people.’ 55
This is apparent in the fact that, although 15 of the 19 new extramural units
were located at the historically white universities, 3 were based at historically black
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universities, largely as a result of significant financial and technical assistance from the
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MRC to build up research capacity on those campuses. The list of institutions hosting
MRC-supported research units was beginning to widen, but as yet only slowly, as the
MRC insisted in public that its brand reputation would be upheld. ‘There will be no
compromise on key principles’, it proclaimed, before pragmatically noting, however,
that ‘there would be flexibility to assist researchers to refine research proposals to
become competitive’.
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