Mutua Meshack Nzesei, Mukumbang Ferdinand C
Department of Organisational Psychology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa.
Department of Global Health, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2025 May 26;23(1):69. doi: 10.1186/s12961-025-01343-7.
Research institutions must demonstrate the capability to efficiently and effectively manage external funding. The Good Financial Grant Practice (GFGP) was developed and operationalized as a capacity assessment and improvement tool and has been used by funding partners to assess and improve grantee institutions' financial and grants management capacity. However, little is known about the effectiveness of the GFGP process. We conducted an Indigenous realist evaluation to examine how the GFGP works, why, for whom and under what circumstances to strengthen African institutional finance and grants management capacity.
A multicase realist evaluation study design was employed. In total, three African universities (cases) of varying sizes were studied; 15 realist-informed qualitative interviews were conducted with research support staff, finance and grants personnel, principal investigators (PIs) and programme-level staff to test an initial programme theory. To test the theory, we applied retroductive theorizing and the context-mechanism-outcome (CMOs) framework. A realist-informed thematic analysis was employed to identify experiential, inferential and dispositional themes necessary for generating CMOs.
We found mechanisms that can enhance (commitment, motivation, awareness and empowerment) or limit (fear, frustration and resentment) the adoption of GFGP in different institutional contexts. Where an institution has an inefficient grants management system, fear of losing funding results in the nondisclosure of the inefficiency of the grants management system, and consequently, the inefficiency remains unresolved. Where the institution has a small external funding base but has an efficient centralized finance and grants management system, the staff are motivated and better aware of the grant processes, leading to the completion of the GFGP process and thus resulting in the review and update of the institution's grants management policies. Where the institution has a large external funding base and has undergone participatory due diligence and audits by other international funders, the staff may feel frustrated and resent, causing the team to push back on the so-called unrealistic recommendations and expectations.
A participatory/consultative approach to the GFGP process can ensure context-sensitive engagements and recommendations and promote stakeholder buy-in. Additional resources should be provided to address the identified financial and grants management capacity gaps as necessary.
研究机构必须展示出高效且有效地管理外部资金的能力。良好财务资助实践（GFGP）作为一种能力评估与提升工具得以开发并投入使用，资助伙伴已用其来评估和提升受资助机构的财务及资助管理能力。然而，对于GFGP流程的有效性知之甚少。我们开展了一项本土现实主义评估，以探究GFGP如何发挥作用、为何起作用、对谁起作用以及在何种情况下能增强非洲机构的财务和资助管理能力。
采用多案例现实主义评估研究设计。总共研究了三所规模各异的非洲大学（案例）；与研究支持人员、财务和资助人员、首席研究员（PI）及项目层面人员进行了15次基于现实主义的定性访谈，以检验初始项目理论。为检验该理论，我们运用了溯因推理理论及情境 - 机制 - 结果（CMO）框架。采用基于现实主义的主题分析来识别生成CMO所需的经验性、推理性和倾向性主题。
我们发现了在不同机构背景下能够增强（承诺、动力、意识和赋权）或限制（恐惧、挫败和怨恨）GFGP采用的机制。若机构的资助管理系统效率低下，对失去资金的恐惧导致资助管理系统的低效率情况不被披露，结果是低效率问题依旧未得到解决。若机构的外部资金基础较小，但拥有高效的集中式财务和资助管理系统，员工会受到激励且对资助流程有更好的认知，从而完成GFGP流程，进而促使机构的资助管理政策得到审查和更新。若机构的外部资金基础较大，且已接受其他国际资助者的参与式尽职调查和审计，员工可能会感到挫败和怨恨，导致团队抵制所谓不切实际的建议和期望。
对GFGP流程采用参与式/协商式方法能够确保贴合实际情况的参与和建议，并促进利益相关者的认同。应根据需要提供额外资源，以弥补已识别出的财务和资助管理能力差距。
