Page 37 - NIH Bulletin Vol. 21: January - June 2023 NIH Way Forward

Vol : 21 • January - Jun 2023 •

FUTURE INSIGHTS: ASPIRATION OF IHSR
FUTURE INSIGHTS: ASPIRATION OF IHSR
FUTURE INSIGHTS: ASPIRATION OF IHSR
FUTURE INSIGHTS: ASPIRATION OF IHSR
• • • • • •
Devi Shantini

Dr. Sondi Sararaks, the Director of Institute for Health comfort, the goal will be clear and the research path
Systems Research (IHSR) was interviewed on her won’t be a struggle.
future aspirations for the institute and the plans to
achieve it. The informal session was very informative Q3: How do you think, as a director, you can
and inspiring, especially for young researchers. encourage others to drive these processes?
Dr. Sondi: I am doing it now with multiple
Q1: What are your three-year and 10-year goals?
approaches. Firstly, everyone needs to participate in
Dr. Sondi: My three-year goal is to build the IHSR a study. You can learn not only from others but also
team to achieve the institutional mandate which will learn by handling the challenges in the process.
is contributing evidence to strengthen the health The limitation of this is that you cannot handle
systems. Research is not just about answering too many studies to get a wider view of things.
questions that the stakeholders are grappling with So, the second approach is to get involved in a
but also addressing the goals behind the research. consultancy project. When you provide consultancy
A series of research needs to be done to accomplish to others, you will learn while viewing things from
this. I hope over time, each centre will engage with different perspectives. Most importantly, we have
a stakeholder with whom they have established to understand that we are all at different levels of
a strong rapport. This makes it easier for us to learning so we have to explore all the avenues as
understand their goals. Achieving this overarching there is no limit to learning ultimately.
aim will take time, so this is my 10-year goal.
Q4: When you have a very young researcher that
Q2: Moving forward, what do you think would be comes in, how do you think the institute can help
one of our biggest challenges? them grow?
Dr. Sondi: Our biggest challenge is knowledge Dr. Sondi: Passion encourages the process of
translation and communication. We have to learning. So, a new researcher has to pick an area of
understand what the stakeholders need more than interest and work in that direction. For those who do
what they want. Communication will be smooth not have their area of interest yet, I would ask them
if we can build a good connection with these to focus on their area of strength and move forward.
stakeholders and gain their trust. Also, I believe that For instance, if you are good at analysis, I would
we have to build our research approach. At present, provide you with the data to conduct an analysis to
most of us are very process driven and struggle to see be steered into a publication. So, it depends on the
the goal. To achieve this, we must be comfortable person’s inclination and area of strength.
with our approach. Once we have this level of

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