Is it possible to tackle obesity and undernourishment simultaneously? That’s the question 2017 Research Award Recipient Carly Hayes set out to answer. Peru, she says, “suffers from a double burden of malnutrition: over 59% of the adult population are overweight or obese, while many children in rural areas are stunted or suffer from anemia.”

Peru has carried out a concerted program to reduce stunting in children under five, says Hayes, but efforts to address obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases such as diabetes have been piecemeal and lack overall policy coherence. A debate is underway as to whether the policies that solved one problem could be retrofitted to address another.

Hayes concluded that retooling existing nutrition policies is a viable option, but “these policies shouldn’t take the place of a more holistic nutrition strategy that seeks to create a healthier food environment.”

Hayes’ says the research and fieldwork in Lima, the Department of Cusco, and the town of Ollantaytambo in the high Andes “gave me the chance both to deepen my knowledge of non-communicable disease prevention and to strengthen my skills in logistics and planning, monitoring and evaluation, and communications.”

“I feel that I grew a lot as a researcher, as a professional, and on a personal level throughout my year as a research awardee.”

However, Hayes considers that one of the most valuable opportunities “was the chance to interact with a cohort of awardees who bring a wide variety of experience, knowledge, and skills to the program. Learning from this remarkable group has allowed me to expand my knowledge of 10 international development issues, instead of just one!”

“Health problems are about more than money,” says 2016 IDRC Research Award recipient Juan Carlos Rivillas. “If we want to achieve universal health coverage by 2030 — one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals — we need to take action on quality of care and inequalities in the use of health services. These are a cause of poor maternal health outcomes worldwide.”

This was Rivillas’ conclusion after his study of the relationship between maternal and infant mortality, health financing, and health system issues in his home country of Colombia. “Beyond financing, the quality of services is crucial in improving maternal and infant health,” he says.

Carrying out research and working at IDRC, “opened my mind about the importance of research for development and global strategies,” he says.

It also expanded his skills. “Most of my research experience had been using quantitative analysis,” he says. “At IDRC, I learned to develop and to implement qualitative research, and to combine both methods. I was interpreting my results when I suddenly realized I understood the problems and potential solutions more easily when I mixed methods.”

Graduate education should challenge traditional modes of learning and create new knowledge. In the field of ecohealth, however, that doesn’t always happen, says Mathieu Feagan, a 2014 IDRC Research Award recipient.

Feagan set out to examine how the knowledge of graduate students, young professionals, and early career academics in Canada and Latin America could be better applied to contribute to ecological sustainability and human health. This inquiry built on his PhD research about how current academic training and research often disregard the experiences and skills of experts-to-be and therefore maintain the status quo.

His IDRC project’s working groups, Feagan says, were made up of “incredibly thoughtful people committed to social-environmental justice.” But, he says, “our position as graduate students, interns, and short-term contract holders puts us, in some sense, in competition for a limited number of jobs, few of which are actually designed to support our aspirations for social-environmental justice. Learning about the different ways that we each come to terms with this and take up action in the North and the South, will continue to be a powerful experience for me,” he says.