Case Study: Central Research Laboratory, Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangalore, India

We are proud to have supported the Central Research Laboratory, Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences (CRL KIMS) in Bangalore, India to become the first organisation in the world to become GFGP certified.

Over the last two years, CRL KIMS has established a new unit for pathogen surveillance. The Unit has has worked in collaboration with, and utilised, CGPS developed tools to collate and analyse data from multiple sites.

The Unit is an active technical leader across India, acting as a strategic hub; with high specification, laboratory facilities that were internationally accredited in 2019 (ISO 1589:2012).

To achieve excellence across their operations, research organizations must have in place administration and financial management structures that support the receipt and management of both national and international grants for their research activities. However, grant management of external funds may put pressure on existing management systems.

CRL KIMS were quick to recognise the role that GFGP could play in closing this gap, strengthening sustainable and effective financial management and operational practices, and supporting both optimal project delivery alongside improved transparency and accountability.

As part of our work in supporting its Global Health Research Unit collaborators, we embarked on an 18-month journey to support CRL KIMS, with the ultimate goal of achieving GFGP certification.

This process started with CRL KIMS identifying the most appropriate GFGP certification tier to work towards. Given the small self-contained nature of the CRL KIMS’ operation and that their focus was primarily national, rather than international, the decision was made to aim at bronze tier certification.

We then visited Bangalore in December 2018 and performed an initial assessment of CRL KIMS’ capabilities against the bronze tier GFGP standard. This highlighted that a number of important financial and operational controls were in operation, however, as for many organisations, there were imporvements that could be made to documentation, governance and support key decision-making and accountabilities.

We worked in partnership with CRL KIMS to draft a customised manual of standard operating procedures (SOPs), using a format familiar to CRL KIMS from their laboratory (ISO) accreditation. A total of 21 individual SOPs were created, ensuring that the GFGP bronze tier requirements were met but also that the procedures were tailored and met the individual organisational needs of CRL KIMS.

Once these procedures were finalised, the project entered the ‘practical implementation’ phase where our focus was on supporting and reviewing the practical implementation of the drafted SOPs to ensure that CRL KIMS could demonstrate at least 3 months of implementation to the GFGP licensed certifier.

This work culminated in producing a detailed certification file for the licensed certifying body. This file evidenced the implementation of the SOPs to support the smooth and efficient completion of the GFGP certification assessment. This was particularly important given that this certification was the first certification ever performed and was completed entirely remotely, due to the restrictions in place because of the covid-19 pandemic.

After successfully completing the rigorous certification process, CRL KIMS were awarded with GFGP bronze tier certification, becoming the first organisation in the world to be GFGP certified at bronze tier (on Monday 15th June 2020).

This was a ground-breaking achievement made possible by the commitment and forward thinking of the CGPS and CRL KIMS partnership in implementing this powerful new international standard.

Case Study: AGROSAVIA – Corporación colombiana de investigación agropecuaria, Bogota, Colombia

We have successfully supported the implementation of GFGP gold tier at AGROSAVIA.

Case Study: Paul’s GFGP journey with Sangath, Goa, India

We supported Sangath in their pursuit of GFGP silver certification.

This video explains Sangath and Paul’s journey with GFGP. Read more about Paul’s role at CGPS (Paul Carvalho- GFGP Consultant)

Read more about how we can help with implementing GFGP.