The Lab Runner will provide day-to-day support to the study team by ensuring the safe, timely, and accurate movement of laboratory samples, documents, supplies, and other study materials between designated study areas, laboratories, and other authorised locations.
The position will support smooth laboratory operations while maintaining sample integrity, confidentiality, safety and compliance with study and laboratory procedures.
Minimum Qualifications and Experience
Key Competencies
The successful candidate should demonstrate:
1. About IDM-Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa needs more local infectious-disease modellers to generate evidence for outbreaks, antimicrobial resistance and other public-health priorities. IDM-Africa is a Strategic Training Hub that will build this capacity through Workshops for early- and mid-career researchers and one-year mentored Fellowships for advanced modellers. Fellows will develop locally relevant modelling projects and translate findings into scientific papers, policy briefs and practical recommendations. The programme combines hands-on learning, expert mentorship and sustained peer support to strengthen African modelling leadership and institutional capacity.
2. Fellowship Program Overview
IDM-Africa invites applications from early- and mid-career scientists in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for its annual Fellowship Programme in infectious-disease modelling. The Fellowship supports scientists who already have foundational training and practical experience in infectious-disease modelling to develop an applied, policy-relevant modelling project using their own data. Fellows will receive structured mentorship from leading modellers, infectious-disease experts and policy specialists at partner institutions. The partner sites are The Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) at Makerere University; University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB) and Amsterdam University Medical Center (UMC) with their corresponding training sites being The African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Sciences, Kampala-Uganda (ACE-Uganda); The African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Sciences, Bamako-Mali (ACE-B); and The Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD).
3. Fellowship Structure
Each Fellowship runs for 12 months:
Fellows should be able to commit 100% FTE for month 1 and approximately 4 hours a day (50% FTE) to Fellowship activities during the online mentorship period.
During the Fellowship, participants will refine their research question; prepare and analyse data; develop, test and interpret infectious-disease models; strengthen reproducible research practice; receive code and data-review support; develop scientific-writing and policy-communication skills; and engage with public-health stakeholders where relevant.
For this round, we are recruiting three (3) fellows as follows:
The Epidemiologist leads disease surveillance, data analysis, and outbreak investigation activities within an assigned area, ensuring timely detection, verification, and response to public health events at Points of Entry (PoE) and border communities. The role provides technical leadership to district and PoE-level teams and ensures high-quality epidemiological data informs decision-making.
The laboratory technical officer will support Laboratory Sample management, Testing and Biosafety Biosecurity measures, daily analysis for patient samples for differential diagnoses, process control, Corrective Action and Preventive Action, laboratory documentation and compile daily updates on laboratory performance.
The candicate will provide technical support to implement infection prevention and control at national, subnational and district level. The position involves strengthening IPC capacity related to routine service delivery and outbreaks responses at different levels
The technical case management officer will work closely with the response teams to provide technical and operational support for the delivery of safe, timely and high-quality case-management services during disease outbreaks and other public-health emergencies.
The Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist will be support to design, implement and review of the project’s monitoring and evaluation interventions. She/he will ensure data-driven decision-making by producing high-quality evidence to support project planning, implementation, learning, and reporting. The role requires strong analytical and communication skills, experience with data systems, and a commitment to strengthening GHS outcomes.
The Lab Runner will provide day-to-day support to the study team by ensuring the safe, timely, and accurate movement of laboratory samples, documents, supplies, and other study materials between designated study areas, laboratories, and other authorised locations.
The position will support smooth laboratory operations while maintaining sample integrity, confidentiality, safety and compliance with study and laboratory procedures.
ACCEPT-Africa Targeted Research Awards for Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness
Background
The African Consortium for Clinical Evidence, Pharmacology and Translational Research (ACCEPT-Africa) is a multidisciplinary, multi-country research consortium under the Africa Pandemic Sciences Collaborative (EPSILON-1). Led by the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), Makerere University, Uganda, ACCEPT-Africa brings together research institutions and investigators from Uganda, Tanzania (Kibong’oto Infectious Diseases Hospital), the Democratic Republic of Congo (Catholic University of Bukavu), South Africa (University of Cape Town), and Italy (University of Turin) to strengthen Africa's capacity to develop, evaluate, and deploy medical countermeasures for epidemic- and pandemic-prone diseases.
ACCEPT-Africa integrates expertise in early-phase clinical trials, clinical pharmacology, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD), implementation science, infectious diseases, laboratory sciences, regulatory science, and epidemic preparedness.
The consortium is guided by three strategic objectives:
To advance these objectives, ACCEPT-Africa invites applications from individual researchers for Targeted Research Awards addressing priority scientific and operational gaps relevant to medical countermeasure development and epidemic clinical research.
Purpose of the Call
The ACCEPT-Africa Targeted Research Awards will provide catalytic funding for focused, high-impact and implementation-oriented research projects that can generate preliminary evidence, address critical knowledge or methodological gaps, strengthen existing research platforms, and contribute to the development and evaluation of medical countermeasures for priority pathogens.
A total of three awards will be available, with funding of up to US$15,000 per project for an implementation period of up to 12 months.
The call is specifically intended to support research that can leverage existing ACCEPT-Africa platforms, cohorts, protocols, laboratory capabilities, partnerships and research infrastructure to achieve clearly defined outputs within the award period.
Applicants must submit a proposal addressing one of the three priority research areas below.
Priority Research Areas
Priority Area 1: Pharmacokinetics of drugs used for diseases of outbreak potential
Priority Area 2: Biomarkers and diagnostics for drug development which could be viral, immunological or other markers that can be used to assess treatment response or severity of highly infectious diseases of outbreak potential
Priority Area 3: Social and Behavioral Research on Epidemic Clinical Trials
Funding Available
ACCEPT-Africa intends to make three competitive research awards, subject to satisfactory scientific review and availability of funds.
Maximum Award
Each successful project may receive funding of up to US$15,000.
Applicants are expected to submit realistic and well-justified budgets directly linked to the proposed research activities and outputs.
Eligible costs may include research personnel support, laboratory reagents and consumables, sample processing and analysis, data collection, participant-related research costs, field activities, data management and analysis, stakeholder/community engagement directly related to the research, and dissemination of findings.
Major capital equipment and costs not directly attributable to delivery of the proposed research should generally not constitute a substantial proportion of the requested budget.
Application Requirements
Applicants should submit a concise application package containing:
Key Timelines
|
Milestone |
Date/Period |
|
Call opens |
September 2026 |
|
Application deadline |
16th October 2026 |
|
Scientific and technical review |
November 2026 |
|
Notification of successful applicants |
Late November 2026 |
|
Anticipated project commencement |
December 2026 |
Applications must be received by 16th October 2026. Late or substantially incomplete applications will not be considered.