EQUINET through HST and University of Namibia and in co-operation with ECSA is implementing in east and southern Africa research, capacity building and programme support for the retention of health workers and for management of out- migration of health personnel. One component of this is a programme of research to assess the costs and benefits of health worker migration and on the effectiveness of policies for management of migration. The country research will be implemented between April 2007 and April 2008 and aims to inform policy negotiation, design and evaluation on managing health worker migration within ESA. Areas of focus should be relevant to policy on health worker migration within the country involved and may include areas such as: • the distribution of costs and benefits of health worker migration to health, health systems, families, and the wider economy, generally or for specific categories of health workers; • policy analysis or evaluation of policy interventions to manage the costs and benefits of migration of health workers; The research may be qualitative or quantitative. The expressions of interest received will be reviewed and successful applicant(s) notified by mid February 2007. Potential grantees will be invited to a regional meeting on retention and migration of health workers to be held in March 2007 in the region. The meeting will provide an opportunity for researchers to present and refine their research proposal and to participate in a methods workshop designed to enhance skills for measuring the costs and benefits of migration to the ESA region and to countries within the region. A final decision regarding the awarding of research grants will only be made after the March meeting. This is an open call. Applications should be emailed to be received by 5pm February 1st 2007 and must include 1. A concept note outlining o the policy issue or problem being addressed through the research o the research questions, methods to be used and major indicators o the stakeholders and institutions who will be involved in the research directly or through dialogue on findings o the manner in which the proposed research will be fed into policy or programme work to support equitable management of health worker migration • A CV and contact information (including email) that makes clear the applicants experiences and skills of relevance to this work; including publications that the applicant has produced in an area related to that of the commissioned paper; and • A sample of a paper written by the applicant in an area closely related to that of the commissioned paper Applications should be sent by February 1st to both EQUINET secretariat (admin@equinetafrica.org) and to HST (ant@hst.org.za) with ‘Health worker migration research’ in the subject line. Feedback will be provided to applicants by February 14th 2007. The applicant will be expected to be available for the 3 day regional methods workshop t be held between March 17 and 30 2007 at a date and venue to be announced and to be available to implement the research in 2007-8.