Research may seem complicated - unachievable, even. When thinking of research, one may picture an intricate laboratory set-up, with test tubes and advanced machinery adorning bench-tops. While this is indeed research, it is only a part of the bigger picture. Research can look very different from this laboratory. It may also look like this: a patient arrives at a community clinic with signs of a carpet viper bite on his foot. This patient is a male farmer, 34 years old, with low socio-economic status. He lives far away and has taken nearly 10 hours to arrive at the clinic. Prior to arriving, he visited a traditional healer, who applied a tourniquet to his leg. He presented with significant pain, local blistering, and incoaguable blood. But his case was not unique - over the past six months, there have been nearly thirty cases of carpet viper bite, all with similar symptoms to this patient. You decide to take a closer look at all of these patients' records - what was common between these patients aside from their symptoms? Did they all recover from snakebite? Or did some experience complications like amputation and mortality? Did they experience sequelae such as loss of ability to work? All of these questions are research questions; setting a research question forms the first step of the six-step research cycle depicted below. 

Learn more about each step by visiting the following pages: 

  1. Setting Your Research Question
  2. Developing Your Study Design
  3. Data Management
  4. Involving the Community in Your Study
  5. Obtaining Permissions and Approvals
  6. Dissemination and Implementation

Infographic showing six step research pathway

In addition, it is encouraged that you keep track of what you did in each step for your research study. Were there challenges you encountered while completing your research project? If so, how did you solve them? This sort of tracking will help you in future studies, and it can also help others in similar contexts learn from your process. Further, you can benefit from a global community of researchers. If this is of interest, please take a look at the 1000 Challenge Study Builder. If you would like to partake in a more involved process of study-tracking, please take a look at the Pathfinder Methodology and get in touch with Aashna Uppal at aashna.uppal@reuben.ox.ac.uk.  

Finally, if you wish to connect with other snakebite researchers and undertake a collaborative project, please visit the Global Community page on this hub.