More than 80 Cambridge researchers have signed up to take their expertise to Africa to strengthen health research on the continent.

The new programme, which involves researchers from both Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), will seek to build up the skills and knowledge of African academics in seven institutions – in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda – generating a “critical mass” of future research leaders in the field.

Africa has 11% of the world’s population and a disproportionate amount of the world’s diseases, but accounts for just 0.3% of the world’s research output. The aim of the programme is to create a self-sustaining research infrastructure in Africa itself.

By matching the scientific interests of African scientists to relevant experts at Cambridge and the LSHTM, the “Training Health Researchers into Vocational Excellence in East Africa” (THRiVE) programme will initially support five postdoctoral fellows and 14 PhD students.

Professor David Dunne, Director of the THRiVE programme in Cambridge, said: “Even in the best African universities, shortages of PhD-level staff and internationally competitive research groups denies young research scientists sufficient mentorship and advanced training, causing a serious block to African scientific progress.”

The programme has been funded with £5.2 million from the Wellcome Trust and is directed by Professor Nelson Sewankambo at Uganda’s Makerere University.

The UK researchers will provide scientific mentorship and co-supervision plus access to individually tailored research training in the UK. They will also have the opportunity to travel to Africa, to interact with the students and their African supervisors in their home institutions.

More than 80 Cambridge academics (including researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute) have offered their research experience in areas ranging from clinical medicine, biological sciences and veterinary medicine, to social sciences, mathematics and engineering.

“It has been astonishing,” Professor Dunne added. “I found myself pushing against an open door. I’m delighted about the breadth of expertise we are offering and the willingness of people to get involved.”

Programme Coordinator Dr Pauline Essah is currently matching successful applicants from the seven African institutions to the health-related expert at Cambridge who can best support their research area.

The programme has been modelled with a view to scalability. “In some ways, we’ve over-engineered the Cambridge organisation because we wanted to create a structure that can easily be built on,” said Professor Dunne. “The goal is to be capable of expanding the model into teaching, extending it elsewhere in Africa, and covering fields outside of health research. Essentially, the aspiration is to create a new way to build research capacity where needed – a new way for the University to interact globally.”

Further information about THRiVE can also be found in the November issue of the University’s research magazine, Research Horizons.

Image: Vincent A. Owino is a Kenyan PhD student working in the Department of Pathology and is supported by the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust. Through the THRiVE Programme, many more African researchers like Vincent will have the opportunity to receive research training in Cambridge labs from next year. Credit: Mark Mniszko.

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