A key goal of the SVRI is to strengthening the evidence base to improve policies and programmes to respond and prevent violence against women (VAW) and violence against children (VAC) where it intersects with VAW, with a focus in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Key actions for this goal include:
1. Support and fund innovative research on VAW and VAC in LMICs:
- Identify and support innovative research
- Provide technical guidance to researchers from LMICs
2. Identify, amplify, debate and disseminate new knowledge and trends in the field:
- Refine and advance a research agenda on key gaps in knowledge and practice
- Distil, synthesise and disseminate information on topical issues
Research Priority Setting
Through rigorous consultative review processes, the SVRI works together with various partners, members, and thought leaders to identify, validate, and disseminate research priorities. Multiple information sources and consensus-building help ensure ownership of the outcome by the field.
These processes are conducted regularly in order to respond to emerging needs and ongoing developments in the field. The priorities broadly set out the research needs of the field, informed by several sources and processes. These include scans of major concerns/issues in the field, literature reviews, stakeholder interviews / online survey, and a Delphi process with key leaders in the field – ensuring that they represent a wide array of stakeholders across sectors, along with reviews of key themes emerging from SVRI Forums, and proposal topics submitted to SVRI and UNTF and other key stakeholders. The priorities are published online, shared via online webinars and SVRI Update.
Read more about our current work on developing a Global Shared Research Agenda on VAWG here.
JLI/SVRI Faith and GBV Hub
The Joint Learning Initiative for Faith and Local Communities (JLI F&LC) and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) have a long-standing relationship, and have combined efforts in a new iteration of the current JLI GBV Hub, originally established in 2014 - the JLI/SVRI Faith and GBV Hub. The secretariat of this hub has moved to the SVRI for a joint evidence and knowledge platform focusing on faith and GBV. Access the resource page and join the Hub here.
UN Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) has taken over the management of the United Nations Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific quantitative data set. The We periodically circulate calls for applications from qualified researchers to access the data set for secondary analysis. For further information please email: svri@svri.org.
SVRI Primary Prevention Project
This project contributed to the evidence base for primary prevention of sexual and intimate partner violence through developing adapting and testing parenting and / or school strengthening interventions.
Realising the right to health care
With funding from the Ford Foundation, the SVRI in partnership with our regional colleagues supported processes within 7 African countries: Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya and Nigeria to develop health sector responses to rape survivors, both immediately after rape and in the longer term, and to promote an appropriate and effective interface between the health, police and justice sectors.
Parenting for Respectability Programme
Over the past few years, a research team from Makerere University in collaboration with the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit Glasgow and the MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit in AIDS, in partnership with the SVRI have been working on the development of a parenting intervention – the “Parenting for Respectability Programme (PfR)”. We tested varying combinations of components of the programme to provide further evidence of their acceptability in different contexts, plausibility of the measures, the intended mechanism of change and the effects of the intervention on key outcomes associated with SGBV and child maltreatment in Uganda.
GBV Science Fair
In 2015 - 2016, the SVRI and the Global Women’s Institute partnered to promote safe and ethical Gender-Based Violence research. Three videos were selected by an expert panel to receive a special prize to advance their research.