Pathway to Impact Framework
Tracking how health research capacity-strengthening activities contribute to skills, collaboration, institutional practice, and wider systems change over time.
The Global Health Network’s Pathway to Impact Framework is a practical and adaptable approach for understanding how health research capacity-strengthening activities contribute to skills, collaboration, institutional practice, and wider systems change. It can be used by projects, knowledge hubs, training programmes, research partnerships, research clubs, communities of practice, and locally led initiatives to track what they deliver, who they reach, what evidence they capture, and what changes over time.
The framework can support tracking of activities such as e-learning courses, webinars, workshops, mentoring and peer learning, curated knowledge hub resources, communities of practice, and research capacity-strengthening activities delivered online, in person, or through a combination of both. It brings together quantitative data, such as registrations, attendance, course completions, certificates issued, countries reached, and platform engagement, with qualitative evidence, such as participant feedback, interviews, focus group discussions, reflections, and impact stories. This helps teams understand not only what was delivered, but also how people and teams used the knowledge, training, resources, and connections in their work.
The framework is designed to be flexible and adaptable while maintaining a shared method for mixed-methods data capture, analysis, learning, and reporting.
What “impact” means
What did we deliver?
- training
- resources
- events
- mentoring
- research clubs
- Knowledge Hub activities
- other capacity-strengthening interventions
Who did we reach?
- researchers
- health professionals
- frontline workers
- students
- research teams
- institutions
- countries
- networks
- communities of practice
What evidence did we capture?
- participation data
- completion data
- engagement metrics
- feedback, interviews
- reflections
- impact stories
What changed over time?
- knowledge
- skills confidence
- collaboration
- research practice
- institutional uptake
- career development
- wider systems strengthening
This framework supports practical learning as well as reporting. It helps teams understand what is working, where gaps remain, and how health research capacity-strengthening activities can be adapted, improved, and sustained.
+ About the Framework
1.1 Why the Pathway to Impact Framework was developed
Health research capacity strengthening happens through many connected activities, including e-learning courses, webinars, workshops, mentoring, research clubs, communities of practice, Knowledge Hubs, and collaborative programme activities.
These activities support researchers, health professionals, frontline workers, students, laboratory teams, data teams, research managers, community engagement practitioners, programme teams, and institutions to build the knowledge, skills, confidence, systems, and collaborations needed to conduct and support high-quality health research.
However, activity counts alone do not fully capture impact. For example, course completions, webinar attendance, or resource downloads show reach and uptake, but they do not explain how people used the learning, whether it changed their confidence or practice, or whether it contributed to team, institutional, or wider system change.
The Pathway to Impact Framework was developed to provide a structured and practical way to capture this change. It combines quantitative metrics with qualitative insights to show how health research capacity-strengthening activities contribute to sustainable improvements in research capacity, collaboration, and performance over time.
1.2 What the framework means by impact
In this framework, impact is understood as the influence that health research capacity-strengthening activities have on individuals, teams, institutions, and wider systems over time.
This may include tracking changes at different levels:
| Level | Examples of impact |
|---|
| Individuals |
Increased knowledge, research skills, confidence, leadership, career progression, and ability to apply learning in practice. |
| Teams |
Improved collaboration, shared learning, problem-solving, research productivity, and ability to design or deliver research activities. |
| Institutions |
Uptake or adaptation of training resources, stronger training systems, improved research capacity, support for research, funding, or policy influence. |
| Broader systems |
Wider knowledge dissemination, regional or global research networks, equitable access to training, policy or practice influence, and locally led research capacity strengthening. |
The framework recognises that impact is often cumulative. Change may develop through repeated engagement with different activities over time, rather than through one course, webinar, or event. For example, a learner may complete an e-learning module, attend a webinar, join a research club, use a toolkit, share learning with colleagues, and later apply that knowledge in a study, programme, institution, or policy setting.
1.3 What the framework tracks
The framework tracks the link between:
Activities delivered → People reached → Evidence captured → Change observed
It can be used to track health research capacity-strengthening activities such as training and e-learning, webinars and workshops, research clubs, communities of practice, knowledge hub resources, toolkits, guidance documents, mentoring, working groups, resource adaptation or translation, collaborative outputs, and impact stories.
This allows teams to capture both the scale of engagement and the meaning of that engagement for people, teams, institutions, and wider systems.
1.4 A mixed-methods approach
The framework combines quantitative data and qualitative evidence.
Quantitative data helps show reach, uptake, participation, and engagement. This may include course registrations, course starts, course completions, certificates issued, webinar attendance, workshop participation, Hub users, page views, resource downloads, countries reached, and outputs such as proposals, publications, grants, or collaborations.
Qualitative evidence helps explain how activities are experienced, used, and applied. This may include course feedback, event feedback, interviews, focus group discussions, participant reflections, discussion notes, impact stories, examples of practice change, and institutional case examples.
Together, these evidence types help teams understand not only what happened, but also why it mattered, how it was used, and what changed as a result.
1.5 Designed to be adapted, support learning and reporting
The Pathway to Impact Framework is intentionally flexible. It can be adapted for large multi-country programmes, smaller locally led projects, knowledge hubs, training initiatives, research clubs, communities of practice, fellowships, and other capacity-strengthening activities.
The framework supports both learning and reporting. For learning, it helps teams identify what is working, where engagement is strong or limited, which groups are being reached, what barriers remain, and how activities can be improved or adapted. For reporting, it helps teams communicate evidence of reach, uptake, application, collaboration, institutional change, and wider contribution to research capacity strengthening.
Outputs may include pathway to impact diagrams, dashboards, engagement summaries, qualitative reports, impact stories, case studies, interim or final reports, and recommendations for future adaptation or scale-up.
+ How to Apply the Framework
The Pathway to Impact Framework follows six practical steps. These steps help teams define what they want to track, collect evidence, and understand how activities contribute to change over time.
The approach should remain practical and proportionate. Not every project needs to collect every type of data. Each team should select the activities, indicators, qualitative methods, and outputs that are most relevant to its purpose, scale, and available resources.
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Step 1. Define the pathway to impact
Identify the main activities, who they are intended to support, and the changes they are expected to contribute to over time.
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Step 2. Capture quantitative data
Collect measurable data on reach, uptake, participation, engagement, and outputs.
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Step 3. Capture qualitative evidence
Gather feedback, reflections, interviews, focus group discussions, and impact stories to understand experience and change.
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Step 4. Bring the evidence together
Review quantitative and qualitative evidence together to understand what happened, how activities were used, and why they mattered.
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Step 5. Assess cumulative impact
Look at how repeated engagement contributes to change over time across individuals, teams, institutions, and broader systems.
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Step 6. Analyse, report, and use findings
Use the evidence for pathway summaries, reporting, learning, and improvement.
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+ What to Track
The Pathway to Impact Framework tracks evidence across four levels: individual, team, institutional, and broader system. For each level, teams can collect both quantitative data and qualitative evidence.
The aim is to understand not only how many people were reached or how many activities were delivered, but also how health research capacity-strengthening activities influenced learning, collaboration, institutional practice, and wider systems change.
| Level | Quantitative metrics and outcome indicators | Qualitative evidence |
|---|
| Individual |
Training completions, course certificates, webinar or workshop participation, grants, publications, conference abstracts, or other outputs linked to individual learners or trainees. |
Skills gained, confidence, leadership development, career progression, and application of learning in research, clinical, laboratory, data, policy, or programme work. |
| Team |
Collaborative outputs, joint proposals, publications, grants, shared resources, research club participation, working group participation, or team-based training uptake. |
Team reflections on improved capacity, collaboration, shared learning, problem-solving, and ability to co-design or deliver research activities. |
| Institution |
Adoption or adaptation of training courses, resources, toolkits, guidance, institutional training activities, funding secured, or institutional outputs. |
Organisational stories of embedding training, use of resources, changes in institutional support for research, digital learning, or capacity strengthening. |
| Broader system |
Participation in regional or global networks, policy uptake, knowledge dissemination, cross-country collaborations, research outputs, or programme adoption evidence. |
Examples of research training influence, policy or practice influence, wider network strengthening, equitable access to training, or locally led research capacity strengthening. |
Teams do not need to collect every type of evidence. Each project, programme, knowledge hub, research club, community of practice, or training initiative should select the indicators and evidence sources that are most relevant and feasible.