Who we are
On this page:
UCD is one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities, the national leader in Ireland in research funding, and is ranked within the top 1% of higher education institutions worldwide.
UCD has had nationally-leading success in many of the most prestigious European awards, including European Research Council and Marie Sklodowska-Curie schemes. In 2022/23 UCD researchers secured €161 million in research grants from national and international funding agencies, companies and foundations. Since 2012/13 UCD researchers have secured over €1.3 billion in such grants.
UCD has prioritised Infectious Diseases as one of its major themes and has more specifically built a strong research base in Translational Medicine and Infectious Diseases research that is led by investigators from the School of Medicine and the School of Biomedical & Biomolecular Science, conducted across a large geographical campus which includes university teaching hospitals, Infection Research Ireland at UCD, the Conway Institute for Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, and the UCD National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL). This research priority is strategically aligned across human and non-human research under a ‘One Health’ approach.
UCD researchers, coordinated through Infection Research Ireland at UCD, have led important research projects related health threats preparedness, including the All Ireland Infectious Diseases (AIID) Cohort and the National Irish COVID-19 Biobank.
UCD world-class facilities consist of core technology platforms and infrastructural support, where state-of- the-art equipment is centrally located, managed and maintained by a cohort of expert staff who provide technical support to researchers. Infection Research Ireland houses state of the art biosafety level 3 research laboratories, extensive equipment for host pathogen research and well-established biobanking facilities.
Makere Lung Institute is a centre of excellence for lung health research, care and training at Makerere University.
The MLI technical and financial team bring together over 30 years of successful programmatic and research projects. During the COVID-19 pandemic, MLI has provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health through research, development of treatment guidelines and training of health care workers.
MLI has established a network of health facilities within the country, including regional and national referral facilities, receiving patients from all-over the country.
MLI has access to state of the art clinical and research laboratories through the Makerere University Biomedical Research centre (MakBRC) which is composed of clinical, microbiology, immunology, molecular biology laboratories, which are all accredited. Further, we have access to the H3Africa Biorepository based at MakBRC to support sample storage for future research.
UCB is located in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Bukavu, the capital city of South Kivu province (bordering Rwanda and Burundi). Founded in 1929, the 500-bed provincial hospital of Bukavu (HPGRB) serves as a center of reference and training for all the rural and urban health zones of the province.
UCB comprises a multidisciplinary team including clinicians, laboratory scientists/ microbiologists, pharmacologist, public health and clinical epidemiologists and social scientists with experience conducting population- and hospital-based research in the DRC with the aim of strengthening the health system in a post conflict area.
NIMR-Mbeya Medical Research Centre (MMRC) is among 8 research centers under the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) and the most active research center across a broad range of infectious and non-infectious diseases providing technical support to the Ministry of Health, Tanzania and beyond. The centre is located in the Mbeya region bordering Malawi, Zambia and DRC Congo. The centre has diversified its activities to create synergies and use its technical infrastructure for multiple disease areas, such as HIV (vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics trials); Ebola vaccine trials, Tuberculosis (drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines trials) with corresponding operational and implementation research. Major comorbidities such as helminth infections, Human Papillomavirus (HPV), Diabetes Mellitus and Cervical Cancer are being studied alongside outbreak or epidemic investigations, emerging and re-emerging diseases.
The centre possesses the state-of-the-art safety, immunology and biosafety level 3 TB laboratories that play a vital role in various diagnostics studies, vaccine and drug trials and emerging/re-emerging diseases.
University of St Andrews is the number one university in the UK and 3rd oldest university in the English speaking world.
In 2021, the university established the St Andrews-Africa Health Research network (StAAHR) to promote mutual research capacity building with partner institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (https://medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk/staahr/). In 2022, the university commissioned its Global office to begin discussions that would lead to institutional collaborations with academic research institutions across Sub-Saharan Africa. The African collaborations will build on the long-standing collaborations the university has with European, Asian and North American institutions, administering joint masters and PhD degrees.
Interdisciplinary learning and research are emphasised at the 19 academic schools that constitute the University. The Biological Sciences Research Complex brings together schools of biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics & statistics, medicine and physics with state-of-art equipment for diagnostics development and drug discovery.
Uganda National Health Research Organisation’s (UNHRO) Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) is an internationally recognized centre of excellence for research and training. UVRI was established to improve the understanding and control of Viruses, the HIV epidemic in Uganda and globally, following a request from the Uganda Government to the United Kingdom (UK) Government.
The institute possesses a BSL-3 laboratory which is a state-of-the-art laboratory with expertise in virus cultures such as HIV, SARS-COV-2, MPV and Adenovirus. UVRI is also the CEPI-centralized laboratory for Ebola and Marburg. The laboratories are GCLP accredited. The laboratory has expertise in evaluating vaccine-induced responses including experimental HIV vaccines, experimental Ebola Zaire Vaccine, experimental Rift Valley Fever vaccines, and the first self-amplifying SARS COV-2 mRNA vaccine (samRNA/LNP).
The research unit has experience that spans over 30 years in conducting clinical trials research and has research sites in Entebbe, Masaka and Kyamulibwa. This research comprises a range of studies that involve interactions with patients, research participants and surrounding communities to understand disease mechanisms and natural history; translational research; diagnosis, prevention, and therapeutic intervention trials; health services research; and epidemiological studies.
The vaccine clinical trial infrastructure housed at the UVRI research clinic, and the clinical research facility provides a concrete platform to conduct and support health research to contribute to the mission of the research unit within the context of the current National health policy and National Development plan.