We are delighted to be able to kick-start our GCRF events series with a masterclass featuring three of Young Lives’ country directors, from Ethiopia, India and Peru. Drawing on their considerable experience in research, governance and policy-engagement, our country directors will share their perspectives as long-term partners of an Oxford-led study, highlighting in particular the challenges they have confronted and strategies they have employed in ensuring research impact in their respective countries. The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) represents a huge opportunity for researchers to produce high-quality evidence and shape policy on a wide range of important development topics. However, implementing these programmes can be extremely demanding. Young Lives, a study of childhood poverty in four developing countries, has received funding from the ESRC to share methodological and operational learning from over 18 years of policy-focused, longitudinal multidisciplinary research. Running throughout 2020, Young Lives’ Methodological Learning programme is delivering a multitude of blogs, videos, podcasts and reports as well as an exciting event series conducted in partnership with Oxford’s GCRF team. Open to all, the masterclass will be of particular interest to GCRF and other R4D research directors, principal investigators, researchers and programme and communications managers at Oxford and will include a mixture of presentation, discussion, and Q&A.

Professor Santiago Cueto is Executive Director and Senior Researcher at GRADE (Group for the Analysis of Development) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Peru. He was appointed as Young Lives Country Director for Peru in 2010. His main areas of interest are education and human development, particularly within a poverty context. He is President of the Peruvian Educational Research Society, Executive Secretary of the Educational Research Fund of the PREAL (Latin American Education Reform Program) and a member of several government education bodies. Dr Alula Pankhurst taught for sixteen years at Addis Ababa University, has run a variety of studies and projects for the World Bank, IrishAid, Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa and other bodies and is Lead Researcher for WIDE (Wellbeing and Ill-being Dynamics in Ethiopia). He joined Young Lives as Country Director for Ethiopia in 2009. A social anthropologist and Senior Policy Advisor on Gender and Adolescence, his research interests include children and youth development, migration and wellbeing and food security and social protection. Dr Renu Singh has over twenty-six years teaching experience in general and special education, teacher education, early childhood development, policy analysis and research both in India and abroad. She joined Young Lives as Country Director for India in 2010. She is a governing board member of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the Working Group for formulating the National Policy on Early Childhood Care & Education, and the Joint Review Missions, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), and also participates in several government expert committees.