In her work with the OUCRU grants team, Katrina focuses on building local grants management capacity and supporting researchers. Bridging with her work in communications and policy engagement, Katrina has a special interest in research impact. She also contributes to global research management projects such as the Indian Research Management Initiative and SRAI.   

In her role as Communications Manager, Katrina leads OUCRU’s comms programme.  Katrina leads a dynamic team of communications officers in Vietnam, Indonesia and Nepal, and together, they produce a comprehensive portfolio of communications products, including the OUCRU website and social media accounts, press engagement, photography and video projects and other creative communications products.   Internal communications for a programme that is spread across multiple countries is challenging but incredibly important for building a research culture that supports equity and inclusion, and OUCRU’s internal communications team work to bring diverse researchers, staff and students together.   

In order to strengthen OUCRU’s capacity to communicate and engage with the policy community, Katrina has built a team of skilled policy engagement and communications staff at OUCRU. This work was partially funded by her Wellcome grant: Establishing Systemic Policy Engagement at OUCRU: a pilot project.   

Under Katrina’s leadership, the communications and policy team contribute to a number of strategic projects at OUCRU, including the RESHAPE project, DART and AWARE, to name a few. A core component of our policy engagement programme is the OUCRU Infectious Diseases Research and Policy Discussion Forum,  which gives both OUCRU researchers and policy stakeholders the opportunity to learn about one another’s priorities, concerns, and opportunities to collaborate. 

Katrina has strong relationships with Wellcome as a key funder, and is committed to developing the capacity for research management and research uptake in Viet Nam and regionally in Southeast Asia.