The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Makerere University and the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Programme (MLW) are pleased to invite applications for two PhD studentships as part of an NIHR-funded programme of research.

The studentships are available to candidates who hold Ugandan or Malawian nationality, or individuals who have been resident in either country for at least three years prior to application.

The studentships will start in January 2026 and come with 3 years of funding. The awards will cover a tax-free stipend aligned to local rates, full-time tuition fees at LSHTM and research and travel expenses.

Only those who meet all the eligibility criteria outlined below will be considered for the studentships.

These PhD studentships offer an exciting opportunity to contribute to a large collaborative, high impact research programme focused on improving equitable access to diagnosis and monitoring of infectious and non-communicable disease in Malawi and Uganda through examining ‘rational use’ of frontline diagnostics across different disease and country contexts.

The students will be based dually within the Department of Global Health and Development, Faculty of Public Health and Policy at LSHTM, and either at the Center for Social Sciences Research on AIDS (CeSSRA) which is housed in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, School of Social Sciences, Makerere University in Uganda or within the Public Health Research Group at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Programme in Malawi respectively. The students will be based primarily in Uganda or Malawi with time spent in the UK at LSHTM. The studentships will provide students with opportunities to engage with theory and method in anthropology and broader social science and contribute to the advancement of individual and community strategies for self-care through engagement with self-testing and self-sampling diagnostics.

See more details here.