A Pathfinder-funded expedition supporting early-career researchers to advance community health and conservation science in Uganda.
The Explorers Club Pathfinder Grant supports SHSI's early-career field research bridging community health, biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. The award enables sustained engagement with hard-to-reach communities and the documentation of health-ecosystem linkages that are rarely captured in mainstream literature.
Objectives
- Strengthen early-career field research capacity within SHSI.
- Document links between ecosystems, nutrition and community health.
- Establish sustained relationships with indigenous host communities.
- Share findings through open, community-accessible formats.
Activities
- Field expeditions to remote communities in western and eastern Uganda.
- Community dialogues and participatory mapping sessions.
- Collection and cataloguing of ethnobotanical and health data.
- Mentorship of Ugandan students in field research methods.
Outcomes
- A validated field research protocol for community-health expeditions.
- Published documentation of community priorities and knowledge systems.
- A pipeline of mentored young Ugandan field researchers.
The grant positions SHSI as a growing hub for community-anchored field science in East Africa, and directly resources the fieldwork that underpins several of our flagship programmes.
