In November 2023, CLARE virtually convened team members from across the research projects it supports to enable knowledge exchange, peer learning and networking at the portfolio level. With registrants from 35 countries, over the course of three sessions 176 participants who play a wide variety of roles across the projects came together to share their work and identify common areas of interest and potential areas for collaboration.

The Forum was an opportunity for the wider CLARE community to consider the “threads”, or common research questions, that they can contribute to collaboratively addressing over the life of the program. Participants also heard insights from gender equality and inclusion experts within project teams, and learned about how different projects are addressing capacity strengthening and research for impact in their work. Project teams also had opportunities to share highlights of their planned projects with the community, and to begin to identify potential connections or synergies. The CLARE Research for Impact Hub and CLARE Capacity Strengthening Hub provided instrumental support to sessions related to their work, and Inclusive Innovation provided expert virtual facilitation for this large, enthusiastic and dedicated group.

Program-level collaboration and learning is built into CLARE’s design, and these efforts will continue over the coming years through dedicated cross-project working groups on common research questions, research for impact, capacity strengthening, gender equality and inclusion, and monitoring and evaluation. We look forward to sharing the lessons as they emerged!

Photo Credit: IDRC / Sylvain Cherkaoui