RSTMH in 2026: looking at the year ahead
January is always a good time to reflect on the past few years as a Society, and our goals for 2026, particularly as we enter the third full year of our current strategy.
This year starts with much hope for exciting new activities and opportunities, against a backdrop of funding cuts and closures to programmes and organisations. It’s an important time for us to revisit the importance of equitable partnerships and technical innovations to try and increase our efficiencies and impact.
Changes to our Early Career Grants Programme
Since 2019, with the support of donor partners, most notably the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), we have provided more than 1,100 early career researchers across the world with their first research grant, as part of our Early Career Grants Programme (ECGP). Almost half of the awardees are women, and 90% of them are from LMICs. This growth in awards, from around 16 to almost 300 in 2024, is phenomenal and so valuable for our awardees and the wider community.
In response to this growth – and changes to our funding and the wider funding environment – we decided to undertake a Grants Consultation last year to ensure the programme remains efficient and impactful for awardees and the wider community. Off the back of the results of the Consultation, we are pausing the opening of the ECGP for 2026. Our focus for the next few months will be incorporating the results of the consultation and reviewing the support we offer to awardees. We look forward to updating you in this exciting area of work over the coming months.
To find out more about the potential changes, see our FAQs page.
A highlight for 2025 was delivering a second workshop for grant awardees in East Africa, which was for our CIFF funded researchers. Given the success and lessons from this workshop, we hope to deliver another workshop this year, with the ambition of broadening the skills and networks for attendees.
Scientific journals and a focus on Artificial Intelligence
Following the launch of our Special Collection on AI in Global Health, this year we will be launching our new scientific journal focused on the same topic. This is an exciting opportunity to try and ensure that learnings and opportunities for the positive use of AI are shared globally, and especially across LMICs.
The scope of the journal is to be confirmed, but we hope it will include all areas of global health and tropical medicine, all applications of AI technology – including what is sometimes captured under digital health and mobile technologies – and the use of AI in all parts of the journey from surveillance, research, diagnostics, health delivery, and policy. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be announcing the Editorial Board Members and planning an official launch for later in the year.
Our two scientific journals Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and International Health will continue to publish new and exciting research and innovations in global health and tropical medicine, and we will be encouraging all members, Fellows and friends to consider publishing their work with us over the coming year.
Broadening opportunities for our members and Fellows
The coming year will be another exciting year for our members and Fellows and for those hoping to join us. Our plans include building on the success of our networking events, and improving the benefits for members and Fellows, wherever they are based.
In 2026, we will continue to roll out Lifetime membership and launch a number of new membership options, including Student LMIC memberships, and a new version of Fellow membership. We hope expanding our membership options will ensure everyone has a membership type that suits their needs.
We will continue to showcase experts in our field of work through exclusive events series for RSTMH members and Fellows, to listen to their work and career advice, as well as an opportunity for Q&A with the expert.
Developing our meetings and events
We are currently working on the events plan for the year, including our Annual Meeting which will be held in London, UK. We will also be delivering a number of in-person and virtual events throughout the year, including Global Research in Progress, activities to mark World NTD Day in January, and many other international awareness days during 2026.
This year we will start planning in earnest our next regional Meeting to take place in India in early 2027, watch this space for more information on this including the date and precise location.
Over the next year we will be continuing to develop plans for the 22nd International Congress for Tropical Medicine and Malaria (ICTMM), the conference we are delivering on behalf of the International Federation for Tropical Medicine (IFTM) in 2028. You can sign up for the ICTMM 2028 newsletter, where we will publish all developments leading up to the event which will be held in Liverpool, UK on 6 – 10 September 2028.
Continuing to address our Strategy
More broadly for us as a society, this year provides a chance for us to continue working towards the goals of our current strategy, which was outlined from 2023-2028. The first goal is about improving skills, experiences and networks for our members and Fellows, which we hope to do across all our existing and new activities.
The second goal refers to delivering impact for communities and for the global health community at large, and we hope our refreshed grants Programme and new AI journal will be two of the new ways we address this. Alongside new initiatives, and our ongoing activities, we’ll continue to work to strengthen our global partnerships, to convene discussions, as well as form collaborations and dedicate time to policy and advocacy.
The final goal of our strategy is to ensure we have the capacity to deliver our work in a sustainable way. As a charity, we are working in challenging financial times. Over the next few months, we will be devoting our efforts trying to improve this situation so that we are able to plan our work for the years ahead. Our capacity as a team remains small, and limited at ten people, so we are very thankful to have hundreds of volunteers across the world who help us with their knowledge and expertise. This group includes our Board, Committee members, Global Assessors, Country and Student Ambassadors, Editorial Board members and journal reviewers. This year we will do more to ensure they are valued for their time and efforts and encourage others to join and support us.
RSTMH continues to be led by two Presidents, Professor Margaret Gyapong based in Ghana and Dr Wendy Harrison, based in the UK who are now in their second term of office, leading our Board.
Our Board of 16 Trustees and six Committees work tirelessly to help govern and direct the work of the Society and also help with the delivery of our work.
The broader not-for-profit landscape
Sadly, we again start the year with many countries and regions experiencing conflict and the effects of climate change, and we are again reminded that health is often affected, both directly and indirectly.
We are also aware of the numbers of our members, Fellows, partners and friends who have been affected by the cuts to funding in global health. We will continue to support our community in these difficult times and help them continue to grow skills and networks.
This challenging environment highlights the importance of partnerships and finding new ways to work with others using our unique strengths to deliver impact for our members and broader society. Our hope is that greater collaboration and the use of technology will help improve efficiency and effectiveness in these times.
Despite difficulties, we are looking forward to the year ahead and hope we will be able to work with you during that adventure. Thank you so much for your support for RSTMH up to now, we hope it continues. Do let us know if there is more we can do to improve and make the impact of our work even stronger.