Lihiket, meaning excellence in Amharic, is an institutional development and postdoctoral fellowship programme, implemented by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, the Institute of Public Health – University of Gondar and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Lihiket is a collaborative effort, the team is made up of researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, senior researchers at the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, senior academics from the Institute of Public Health at the University of Gondar and three postdoctoral research fellows based at the University of Gondar.

The three postdoctoral fellows were competitively recruited in 2022 and will receive joint mentoring from senior academics at all three institutions.

The project officially launched in 2022, but has its origins in two other collaborative research projects in Ethiopia, the Dagu and ORCA projects. Both projects illustrated how capacity development can be successfully integrated as part of a joint research effort and supported by all involved institutions.

Lihiket aims to work towards bridging the gap in research capacity between the Global North and Global South by focussing on continuous capacity development for early career researchers and their institutions.

Based on a needs assessment of institutional capacity development for health system research the Lihiket team implements joint activities to address the identified needs in a manner that can be sustained beyond the duration of Lihiket.

The Lihiket project is funded through a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.