Building our capacity to research violence against women and girls

Research is a powerful tool for anyone who is working to end violence against women and girls (VAWG). Evidence can answer important questions for practitioners and policymakers, including about the kinds of violence women and girls are experiencing, how services for survivors can be improved, and importantly, how to prevent violence. But too often research feels inaccessible to people who are best placed to use it to advocate for women’s and girls’ safety, health, and rights.

The What Works Research Capacity Strengthening Platform was developed to make the skills and knowledge used to build evidence more accessible to all working to end VAWG. Anyone can access the platform just by signing up with their email address, and once logged in there are several self-paced courses exploring key areas of research methods and analysis. The courses are for everyone: they aren’t filled with complicated research language, and they aren’t targeted only toward people who have a research background. They are meant to give any person who is working to end VAWG a basic foundation in research that can help them build, understand, and use evidence for change. 

The platform currently contains seven self-paced courses, and a library of key resources. Courses include:

• Introduction to Research Design, which provides a structured approach to understanding critical research design principles, equipping learners with the knowledge to apply these principles effectively in their work. Participants will be able to define a research question, select an appropriate research design, determine a study population, choose data collection methods, and consider ethical implications in research.

• A Deeper Dive into Impact Evaluations, which digs into different kinds of programme evaluation, including experimental designs (randomised controlled trials, or RCTs).

• Collecting Qualitative Data, which highlights key steps to collecting data that can be summarised in words or pictures, answering “how” or “why” questions.

• Analysing Qualitative Data, which summarises ways in which researchers understand and summarise qualitative data.

• Collecting Quantitative Data, which highlights key steps to collecting data that can be summarised in numbers, answering “how much” or “how many” questions.

• Analysing Quantitative Data, which summarises the most common ways researchers understand and summarise numerical, quantitative data (that is often used in evaluation research).

• Ethical Principles for VAWG Research and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E), which explores key ethical and safety considerations in VAWG research, as guided by the World Health Organization (WHO) ethical and safety recommendations.

• Systematic Reviews, which maps the key steps in registering and conducting a systematic evidence review, whether you’re new to this process or looking to refine your approach.

All course modules are interactive and include exercises and quizzes to test whether learners are understanding the material. This is a living platform, where the What Works team plans to add additional courses and resources, including about other forms of evidence (like practice-based knowledge).

Building the global knowledge base on VAWG is critical to ending it and improving the lives of women and girls. Our hope is that the capacity strengthening platform will equip more colleagues with the tools to build evidence that is necessary for change.

More information

• Discover the Research Capacity Strengthening Platform

• Explore our Evidence Hub