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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Capacity building in public health with two Saudi universities: Challenges of knowledge transfer

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Abstract Introduction Collaboration between SDU and two Saudi Arabian (KSA) Universities started in 2012. Case 1 was a new public university for women; the contract (until spring 2017) aimed at knowledge transfer from SDU to two Bachelor of Science curricula (Epidemiology, and Health Education and Promotion). The aim was to train the trainers by teaching the 1st student cohort 100% by the SDU staff and for later cohorts to increase the teaching by local staff gradually. The SDU teams travelled to KSA to run 1-month courses at a time. In Case 2 (ongoing since 2017), 1-week courses for health professionals are offered in an established mixed-gender university; the courses are for a fee. Lessons learnt In case 1, knowledge transfer was challenging, since the local staff was busy ‘with their own courses’ and had low interest to learn from SDU. The SDU and the local group were working as separate teams. The local staff saw knowledge transfer as receiving the slides and other material from SDU. Only in the 5th contract year, interaction started mainly via staff capacity building workshops organized by SDU. The students appreciated the SDU teaching, and on the administrative level collaboration worked very well. Due to the lack of ownership among local teachers and deficits in cultural adaptation on- site, knowledge transfer was not successful. In case 2, different cultural approaches seem to clash; SDU prefers to market the courses early and e tailor them for the target groups; the Saudi cultural tradition relies less on organized marketing and is flexible with the registration deadlines. For the 1st course, this meant that the SDU team travelled to KSA without knowing who and how many participants had signed up. Learning the background of the participants only when the course started meant that the teaching was finalized from day-to-day while running the course. In the end, based on the course evaluation, the 9 participants were very satisfied with the course.