Mildmay Research Centre Uganda

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 conversationSee 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.
Researchers collaborating at MRCU

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 hospital with 14,600 patients in active care, a prequalified trials site, an ISO 15189 laboratory, a biorepository, and more than two decades of linked clinical data. Ethics review happens on site through MUREC, and scientific review is independent.

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 infrastructureOur publication record
Research partnership meeting

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 managementStudies 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 is continuous rather than dependent on any single project.

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.

ViiV Healthcare with THRIVE

UPART

Long-term outcomes of dolutegravir among children and adolescents living with HIV, including point-of-care viral load monitoring. Our single largest grant.

Unitaid and FIND

PAHLCA-IRI

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

NIH with Makerere University

PREGART

A randomized non-inferiority trial of first-line ART regimens in pregnant and breastfeeding women, now in its final year.

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.

MRCU Research Associate-led

AMBER

AntiMicrobial B cell Exploratory Research: B-cell immunology and microbiome interactions in infectious and non-communicable diseases affecting 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.

Diagnostic validation in the laboratory

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.

Validation work runs through the ISO 15189 accredited laboratory and, where the tool is used in care, through the clinical platform. Digital and AI-enabled tools can additionally enter the TRANSPIRE translation pathway.

  • 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 and mentorship at MRCU

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 rather than 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 opportunitiesEnquire 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 and the University of Hasselt.

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.

Mildmay Group

Part of something larger

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 institute trains the health workers our studies depend on.

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 Institute 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 hosts the ethics committee, laboratory, biorepository and data systems described across this site.

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