The Impact of Equipment

Our hypothesis

Providing scientists with lab equipment will change the scale and sophistication of projects they can pursue. By reducing the cost of obtaining equipment, we will give them the opportunity to use their limited budgets to cover other research costs including chemicals and trainee support.  This should allow them to increase their experimental work and train more students. More well-trained students and increased research output means more data disseminated publicly in scholarly publications. This in turn feeds back into the ability to obtain more grants based on new research findings, which can cover the costs of future equipment needs and training of even more students.  Ultimately, this research should lead to real solutions to problems facing our scientists' communities.

How we measure our impact

Scientific discoveries are not made overnight. We know that the changes we hope to see in the work of our colleagues overseas will take place slowly, over years. Therefore we try to track both short-term and long-term indicators.

Since 2003, we have provided equipment to labs and clinics in 14 countries. In our most recent survey, our scientists reported that they are now training over 250 students, post-docs and research assistants. Since receiving equipment from us, 83% of them have increased the number of trainees they can support and 66% have increased the number of projects they are pursuing. They have increased their budgets by an astounding amount – an average of 216% relative to their budget when they received equipment. And best of all, they have produced results, published in 60 journal articles in national and international publications.

How we measure our progress

We also monitor our own progress as an organization, for efficiency and scale. Data for every piece of equipment we collect and send is tracked in our inventory system. As we grow, we continue to send equipment of higher quality and more complex or research-specific items.