Work With Us

A research home for scientists who want to get work done

Mildmay Research Centre Uganda (MRCU) hosts studies, manages grants, trains fellows and opens its infrastructure to collaborators. If you have a protocol, a grant idea, a product to validate or a dataset question, there is a route in.

Start a conversation See our infrastructure

Find your route in

Who are you?

For researchers

Host a study, join a protocol, access data or specimens, or run a sub-study inside an existing platform.

For sponsors and funders

Place a trial at a prequalified site, or fund work through an institution with audited grants management.

For product developers

Validate a diagnostic, device or digital health tool in an accredited laboratory and a real health system.

For fellows and students

Join as a Masters or postdoctoral fellow with mentorship, data access and a route to publication.

For researchers

Bring the science; the platform is already here

Researchers come to MRCU because the hard parts are already solved. There is a defined population under surveillance, a multidisciplinary hospital, a prequalified trials site, an ISO 15189 laboratory, a biorepository, and a growing resource of linked clinical records. Ethics review is provided by MUREC, the Mildmay Uganda Group committee. MRCU Board-level scientific oversight is a separate function.

We work as scientific collaborators, not just as a site. MRCU investigators co-develop protocols, contribute to analysis and authorship, and bring knowledge of what actually works in Ugandan health services.

Host a clinical trial, cohort study, implementation study or qualitative sub-study
Nest a study inside an existing platform or the surveillance cohort
Request access to longitudinal data under a data-sharing agreement
Request stored specimens under a material transfer agreement
Co-develop a protocol with MRCU investigators and community advisory input

Research infrastructure Our publication record

For sponsors and funders

A site that is ready, and an institution that can hold a grant

MRCU is a clinical trials site prequalified through AfriTrials Connect, with the staffing, quality systems and documentation practice to take on sponsored work without a long build-up. It is also an autonomous legal entity under the Mildmay Uganda Group, able to receive, manage and account for research funding directly.

The centre has hosted competitively funded work supported by EDCTP, the NIH, the CDC through PEPFAR, ViiV Healthcare and GSK, THRIVE, and the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking co-funded by the European Union.

Prequalified trials site with established start-up documentation
Direct grant-holding capacity with audited financial management
Experience as a consortium partner in multi-country EU-funded research
Independent ethics and scientific review, and active study monitoring

Grants management Studies we have hosted

Grants management

Grants handled properly, from idea to final report

Grants management at MRCU is a core institutional function, not an afterthought. Researchers get support across the whole lifecycle so that funding is won, spent and accounted for without the administrative burden falling on the science.

01 · Before award

Grant development and grantsmanship

Concept shaping, proposal development, budget construction, partner letters, compliance review and submission support for competitive calls.

02 · At award

Contracting and set-up

Grant and consortium agreements, sub-award contracting, ethics and regulatory clearance, and study start-up documentation.

03 · During award

Financial management and routing

Fund routing to study teams and sub-awardees, expenditure tracking against budget, procurement and audited financial control.

04 · Throughout

Compliance and donor reporting

Donor reporting cycles, compliance with funder terms, risk tracking and coordination across consortium partners.

05 · Beyond the grant

Research incubation

Support to move promising early work toward fundable proposals, including pilot data generation and mentorship.

06 · Institutional

Capacity that stays

Grants capability is built into the institution, so support continues when any single project ends.

Active portfolio

Nine active grants, and counting

MRCU currently manages a portfolio of nine active grants alongside a pipeline of proposals under review. Every one of them is administered in-house: contracting, fund routing, compliance and donor reporting.

Paediatric and adolescent HIV cohort

UPART

An observational cohort studying routine HIV care, with sub-studies on dolutegravir outcomes and advanced HIV disease.

Explore the study

Unitaid and FIND

PAHLCA-IRI

Comprehensive HIV programming delivered through a multi-principal-investigator consortium.

Global Health EDCTP3 · Phase 4

PREGART

A randomized trial comparing dolutegravir and EFV400 during pregnancy and breastfeeding, with follow-up of mothers and infants.

Explore the study

Global Health EDCTP3

TEST4TPT

Person-centred TB prevention through skin testing, AI-assisted reading and community delivery across three countries.

Open project page

NIMH

INMIND

Implementation science on incentives and reminders to improve long-term medication adherence.

PENTA Foundation

PENTA / THRIVE

Multi-site paediatric HIV research, with MRCU participating as a satellite site.

Nationale Postcode Loterij

AIR TBC

Development and evaluation of an AI-powered tuberculosis screening tool.

AMBER Initiative

AMBER

An international research initiative founded and scientifically led by Dr. Ramapraba Appanna and hosted by Mildmay Research Centre Uganda. AMBER advances B-cell immunology, antibody science and host-microbiome research to investigate infectious and non-communicable diseases, with particular emphasis on maternal and child health.

Digital health

Digital health and data repository

Work enabling the institutional data repository and AI-assisted digital health tools.

Proposals currently under review include CIPHER and INSPIRE. For the full list of studies and their designs, see Studies and Projects.

For product developers

Tool and diagnostic validation in a real health system

Developers of diagnostics, devices and digital health tools need more than a laboratory bench: they need accredited testing, a patient population, clinicians who will actually use the tool, and evidence that regulators and funders will accept. MRCU provides all four.

We support external innovators with validation at the research centre and Mildmay Hospital. Our laboratory and clinical teams work with developers to evaluate diagnostics, devices, digital tools and AI models. We also build research collaborations around study design, analysis, usability and implementation.

Diagnostic and medical device validation in an accredited laboratory
Field evaluation with real users in routine service settings
Usability, feasibility and acceptability studies alongside accuracy work
Health-economic and implementation evidence for adoption decisions
Evaluation consultancies for programmes and implementing partners

Research fellows

Fellowships with data, mentorship and a route to publication

MRCU hosts Masters and postdoctoral fellows working in applied health research, biostatistics, data science, implementation research and public health. Fellows are attached to real studies and to the institutional data holdings, so the work leads somewhere: an analysis, a manuscript, a conference abstract.

Capacity building is structured, not incidental. The centre runs MicroResearch training, manuscript and abstract writing workshops, and structured mentorship that strengthens local research capacity and scientific writing.

Masters and postdoctoral fellowships across applied health research disciplines
Secondary analysis of MRCU's longitudinal datasets under supervision
MicroResearch training and manuscript development workshops
Mentorship from senior investigators and international collaborators
Support to develop first-author publications and grant applications

Current opportunities Enquire about fellowships

Our network

Who we work with

MRCU works with universities, research institutes, national programmes, funders and implementing partners across Uganda, Africa, Europe and North America. The network is what turns a single site into a platform for multi-country science.

National and Ugandan partners

Ministry of Health and the National TB and Leprosy Programme, Makerere University School of Public Health, Makerere University Lung Institute, Uganda Virus Research Institute, the Joint Clinical Research Centre and the Central Public Health Laboratory.

International research partners

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, RAND Corporation, ISGlobal, KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, Boston University, University of Manchester, Michigan State University, Washington State University, the University of Hasselt and MicroResearch International (Dalhousie University and IWK Health Centre, Canada).

Funders and sponsors

EDCTP and the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking, the NIH, PEPFAR through the CDC, ViiV Healthcare and GSK, THRIVE, Grand Challenges Canada and the World Health Organization.

Partnership

MicroResearch International, Canada

MRCU partners with MicroResearch International, a capacity-building programme based at Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Canada. It began in 2008 as a collaboration between Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Dalhousie, and has since run workshops in 11 countries.

The model is deliberately small and local: health workers form multidisciplinary teams, develop a community-focused research question, and take it through an international review panel before submitting to their own research ethics committee. A MicroResearch training workshop was held at Mildmay in October 2024, and teams formed there are now developing and implementing their own studies with mentorship from MRCU and Canadian coaches.

MicroResearch International Ask about joining a team

Training workshops build the skills to frame and run a community-focused study.
Teams refine proposals for review by an international panel of research experts from Canada and Africa.
Approved teams submit to their local research ethics committee and carry out the research.
Findings are taken back to the community through a knowledge translation plan.

Mildmay Group

The entities you will be working alongside

MRCU is one of four entities in the Mildmay Uganda Group. The non-governmental organisation runs community and health systems programmes, the hospital provides the clinical platform our studies recruit from, and the university trains the health workers our studies depend on. See how the four connect on the home page.

Mildmay Uganda

The non-governmental organisation at the centre of the group. Its programmes span disease prevention and management, health systems strengthening, global health security, disability programming and household livelihoods, and have reached more than 10 million beneficiaries.

mildmay.or.ug

Mildmay Hospital Uganda

A 24-hour multidisciplinary hospital at Lweza on Entebbe Road with over 20 specialised clinics, an ISO 15189 accredited laboratory and ISO 9001 certified quality management. It is the clinical platform behind our research.

mildmayhospitaluganda.com

Mildmay University of Health Sciences

Certificate, diploma and degree programmes in nursing, midwifery, allied health and applied sciences. It is registered by the National Council for Higher Education, the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council and the Allied Health Professionals Council.

mihs.ac.ug

Mildmay Research Centre Uganda

The applied health research arm of the group. MRCU runs clinical research, implementation research and innovation, and works with the Group hospital, laboratory, biorepository and data systems described across this site. MUREC is the Group's ethics committee.

This website

Get in touch

Tell us what you are trying to find out

Whether it is a protocol, a proposal, a product or a dataset question, the fastest route is a conversation with the team.

Contact MRCU