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Research capacity strengthening (RCS) can empower individuals, institutions, networks, or countries to define and prioritize problems systematically; develop and scientifically evaluate appropriate solutions; and reinforce or improve capacities to translate knowledge into policy and practice. However, how to embed RCS into multi-country studies focusing on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is largely undocumented. We used findings from a qualitative study, from a review of the literature, and from a validation exercise from a panel of experts from research institutions that work on SRHR RCS. We provide a framework for embedded RCS; suggest a set of seven concrete actions that research project planners, designers, implementers, and funders can utilise to guide embedded RCS activities in low- and middle-income countries; and present a practical checklist for planning and assessing embedded RCS in research projects.

Doctoral training has increasingly become the requirement for faculty in institutions of higher learning in Africa. Africa, however, still lacks sufficient capacity to conduct research, with just 1.4% of all published research authored by African researchers. Similarly, women in Sub-Saharan Africa only constitute 30% of the continent's researchers, and correspondingly publish little research. Challenging these gendered inequities requires a gender responsive doctoral program that caters for women's gender roles that likely affect their enrollment in, and completion of, doctoral programs. In this article, we describe a public and population health multidisciplinary doctoral training program - CARTA and its approach to supporting women. This has resulted in women's enrollment in the program equaling men's and similar throughput rates. CARTA has achieved this by meeting women's practical needs around childbearing and childrearing and we argue that this has produced some outcomes that challenge gender norms, such as fathers being child minders in support of their wives and creating visible female role models.