A new partnership between the Africa Research Excellence Fund and RSTMH

27 Oct 2020

The Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) was founded by Professor Tumani Corrah KBE, a long-standing member of RSTMH, and established by the Medical Research Foundation with the aim of transforming the leadership potential of Africa’s health researchers. Since 2015, AREF has trained and mentored over 200 talented young researchers from 30 different African countries. They in turn have gone on to raise over £5 million in internationally competitive research grants, transforming their ideas into fundable projects that are tackling Africa’s most pressing health issues.

Five years after AREF’s launch, the organisation has published its first Impact Report. The report highlights how AREF has made its mark through investing in talented early-career African researchers over the last five years.

AREF has helped support the next generation of African researchers develop the skills, networks and capabilities they will need for a successful and impactful career. AREF is currently inviting applications from active, emerging health researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa to take part in an online Essential grant writing skills workshop. The workshop will help talented early-career researchers build skills and develop their ability to produce high quality proposals that will help them secure future funding – regionally, nationally and internationally.’

You can read about this workshop and apply for a place up to the 28 October.

Apply for a place now

RSTMH and AREF are working together to jointly promote each other's work, with a shared goal of supporting African researchers, especially those at the start of their careers. We would like to encourage our members and friends to consider applying for the grant writing workshop. This workshop may be especially useful for those thinking about applying for an RSTMH Small Grant in 2021.

Over the coming months, we will scope opportunities to work together to increase the capacity of researchers across Africa as part of our aims to support those who are early in their careers and are based outside of the UK.