Africa Open Lab is a grant from GSK that funds early-career African scientists conducting innovative research on infectious diseases. The program supports population-based or clinical studies addressing malaria, tuberculosis, drug-resistant bacterial infections, and enteric infections, with a focus on epidemiology, prevention, treatment compliance, antimicrobial resistance, and health policy impact.

Funded projects may include clinical or field sample analysis; purely in vitro or animal-model studies are not eligible. Eligible applicants are African scientists at an early stage of their research careers with an interest in infectious disease. Full proposals are due by August 14, 2026, following a concept proposal review stage.

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Concept Proposal Review Full Proposal Review Proposal of Interest Submission period for concept opens Submission period for concept closes Concept review outcome communicated Submission for full proposal opens Submission for full proposal closes Full proposal Outcome communicated Next step: Draft protocol submission for review 14th July 2025 (14:00 GMT) 3rd September 2025 (17:00 GMT) 12th December 2025 12th December 2025 19th February 2026 15th May 2026 14th August 2026 The Africa Open Lab concept submission period is now closed.

[Africa Open Lab Proposal submissions:] The Africa Open Lab is inviting applications from African scientists at an early stage of their career with an interest in conducting research in infectious diseases. We strive to enable awardees to develop their research careers through offering funding for a research project and mentoring while they conduct their innovative research projects.

Africa Open Lab call is for proposals of relevance to the understanding of infectious disease epidemiology, aetiology, prevention and control; proposals addressing significant gaps in knowledge as well as mechanisms to improve access and use of medicines and vaccines for infectious diseases in Africa.

Proposals must demonstrate the specific health needs their research will address and how they will engage with specific stakeholders to bring about change in health policy and/or practice. The research project may consist of population-based or clinical studies, laboratory-based analysis of field or clinical samples; but projects focused solely on studies in vitro or research using animal models will not be considered.

[The applications are invited in the following disease areas:] o Tuberculosis (TB) or drug-resistant tuberculosis o Drug resistant bacterial infections Malaria (may include but not limited to research addressing) Epidemiology (characterisation) in children hospitalised due to malarial anaemia and severe malaria, with focus on management of those discharged with anaemia (e.g. description of preventive malaria treatment and treatment outcome) Treatment of malaria with artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs): o Level of compliance with ACTs o Risk factors that lower compliance and their link to treatment outcomes in a real-world setting Seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) and perennial prevention of malaria o Level of resistance to drug used in SMC o Cost of delivering SMC and cost of care of a malaria case and the impact to caregivers and the affected individuals o Risk factors that lower compliance (inc. different populations) and their link to treatment outcomes in a real-world setting Description of standard of care and treatment seeking behaviours and dynamics Diagnosis of malaria.

Detection of low level parasitaemia in asymptomatic carriers. Detection of mixed infections; prevalence of non-falciparum malaria Treatment for P. vivax/ovale radical cure.

Evidence of chloroquine resistant strains.

Risk factors for effective treatment (compliance, G6PDH deficiency) Effectiveness of vaccines Approaches to increase the uptake of malaria vaccine and other interventions Tuberculosis (TB) or drug-resistant tuberculosis (may include but not limited to research addressing) Understanding prevalence of isoniazid (H) resistance and the influence of H resistance in HRZE treatment outcomes (isoniazid (H), rifampin (R), pyrazinamide (Z), and ethambutol (E)) Understanding prevalence, characteristics, clinical outcomes of extensively resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and pre-XDR TB Understanding emergence of resistance to newer therapies Level of compliance to TB treatment: drug sensitive, drug resistant and TB preventative treatment Risk factors that lower compliance (inc. different populations) and their link to treatment outcomes in a real- world setting Drug resistant bacterial infections (may include but not limited to research addressing) Phenotypic and genomic surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and surveillance of anti-microbial use (AMU), antimicrobial access and stewardship Resistance mechanisms of priority bacterial pathogens (as identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO)) Impact of vaccines; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Infection, Prevention and Control (IPC) Wastewater based epidemiology of AMR AMR at One Health interface Enteric Infections (may include but not limited to research addressing) Typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, nontyphoidal salmonella (NTS) diseases Prevalence, incidence, and/or case fatality of typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, invasive non-typhoidal salmonella (iNTS) Disease in different real-world settings (with focus on children under 5 years with granular data by month of age in first year), possibly including prevalence and incidence of disease caused by drug resistant strains Cost of the illness possibly from different perspectives (healthcare system, societal) iNTS disease – Proportion of carriers of nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) among population, mode of transmission and reservoir Surveillance of potential Salmonella serovar replacement following introduction of Typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV) vaccines o Case fatality rate of enterocolitis disease due to Non Typhoidal Salmonella o Treatment of infections caused by Salmonella with focus on outcomes of treatment and resistance to antibiotics Epidemiology of viral infections (rotavirus/ norovirus) If you are interested in applying, please see the Scope document and applicant conditions document for further information on the Programme and to see whether you match the eligibility criteria.

To help you prepare your submission, you can download a copy of the Concept submission form template here so that you can review the different fields/ questions ahead of your online submission. To help us verify your identity, a validation code will be sent to you. Phone Number (By providing your phone number, you agree to receive text messages.

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