AccScience Publishing / GHES / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/ghes.3037
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

International scientific cooperation in public health: A performance measurement framework based on the “Syphilis No!” Project in Brazil

Thaisa Gois Farias de Moura Santos Lima1,2 Karilany Dantas Coutinho2 Natalia Araújo do Nascimento Batista2,3* Ruana Evangelista Galvão2 Bruna Fernandes de Araújo2 Iasmin Moreira Alves Martins2 Luca Pareja Credidio Freire Alves2 Manoel H. Romão2,4 Juciano de Sousa Lacerda2 Carlos Alberto Pereira de Oliveira2,5 Aline de Pinho Dias2,6 Priscila Sanara da Cunha2 Aliete Cunha Oliveira7 António Manuel Rochette Cordeiro8 Almudena Muñoz Gallego9 Maria Natália Pereira Ramos10 Carla Maria Bispo Padrel de Oliveira10 Rodrigo Pires de Campos11,12 Ricardo Alexsandro de Medeiros Valentim2
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1 Parliamentary Advisor Formally Assigned to the Federal Senate, Ministry of Health, Brasilia, Federal District, Brazil
2 Laboratory for Technological Innovation in Health (LAIS), Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
3 Social Sustainability and Development Graduate Program, Open University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal
4 Distance Education and eLearning Graduate Program, Open University of Portugal/University of Minho, Portugal
5 Multidisciplinary Institute for Human Development with Technologies, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6 Education Graduate Program, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
7 Department of Public Health, Family and Community Nursing, Nursing School of Coimbra/UICISA:E, Coimbra, Portugal
8 Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies - CEIS20, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
9 Department of Applied Communications Sciences, Faculty of Information Sciences, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
10 Center for Migration Studies and Intercultural Relations, Open University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal
11 Institute of International Relations, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Federal District, Brazil
12 Development, Society and International Cooperation Graduate Program, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Federal District, Brazil
Submitted: 28 February 2024 | Accepted: 28 March 2024 | Published: 13 May 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

In this article, we aim to propose indicators to evaluate the performance of international scientific cooperation in public health, based on the operation experience in Brazil’s “Syphilis No!” Project. This is an action research project, based upon Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard Method, developed in five stages: (i) Reorganization of the indicators, (ii) validation of the new indicators, (iii) construction of the dimensions of the indicators, (iv) data collection for the indicators, (v) development of the framework for the “Syphilis No!” Project. The metrics and 34 indicators are presented and grouped into four dimensions: technical-scientific, investment, products, and impact. The cooperation that emerged from the project has built an international research network that has the potential to transcend syphilis research. The framework demonstrated that international scientific cooperations, focused on research and product development, have contributed to the promotion of public health policies and have enabled the exchange of knowledge, techniques, experiences, and technologies, fundamental to the international scientific cooperation of Brazilian universities. This contribution will have implications for studies in the field of international relations in health and education.

Keywords
International scientific cooperation
Syphilis
Health policy
Performance evaluation
Global health
Funding
The Brazilian Ministry of Health funded the present study through the “Syphilis No!” Project, executed by the Laboratory for Technological Innovation in Health (LAIS) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN).
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Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Global Health Economics and Sustainability, Electronic ISSN: 2972-4570 Published by AccScience Publishing