cross-sector partnerships, critical perspectives, South Africa, Zambia,

The National Institute for Health Research, Research Design Service (NIHR RDS) was set up to increase the number and proportion of high quality applications for funding for applied and patient focused health and social care research. Access to specialist expertise and collaboration between researchers and health practitioners at the proposal development stage is crucial for high quality applied health research. In this essay we develop the concept of ‘research capital’ to describe the wide range of resources and expertise required to develop fundable research projects. It highlights the key role the RDS plays supporting researchers to broker relationships to access the requisite ‘research capital’.

Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are often resistant to the employment opportunities offered by skilled graduates. The Centre for Lifelong Learning at Brunel University ran a two‐year project aimed at encouraging local SMEs to consider unemployed graduates as suitable new employees through short‐term placements. The concept of workplace‐based learning was introduced into firms by the graduates acting as strategic change agents. A valuable learning experience can be gained by both small firms and graduates searching for work experience through the brokerage role of a university. There is a limit to the impact of external factors in generating organizational changes in small firms. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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