The Vice Chancellor of TEAM University Kampala and the Director of Health at the East African Community Secretariat met at the Mengo campus on Tuesday to sign a three-year research collaboration on the application of artificial intelligence to public-health challenges across the region. The agreement is the largest research pact TEAM has signed since the university opened in 2015, and runs from January 2027 through December 2029.
Under the agreement, the EAC will fund eight graduate research fellowships at TEAM, a shared research laboratory at the university's Mengo campus, and an annual conference rotating between member states. The first cohort of fellows will be selected from the December 2026 application window.
What the partnership will study
The collaboration will focus on three research streams: AI-assisted triage in district-level health centres, anomaly detection across regional disease-surveillance systems, and decision-support tools for community health workers. Each stream will be led by a senior TEAM faculty member paired with a counterpart from a partner ministry of health.
Public health in this region cannot wait for the perfect data or the perfect tool. The point of this collaboration is to put working systems in the hands of community health workers within twenty-four months — not five years.
The university will recruit the first two cohorts of fellows through an open call, advertised in November 2026 and November 2027. Applicants must hold a recognised undergraduate degree in a relevant field and demonstrate strong interest in public-health applications.
Why this matters
The agreement positions TEAM as one of the few NCHE-licensed universities in Uganda running an applied research programme funded by a regional inter-governmental body. It also strengthens the institutional case for the School of Health Sciences' Nursing, Midwifery and Medical Laboratory Technology programmes, which are currently undergoing NCHE accreditation.
The first conference under the partnership will be hosted at the Kampala campus in June 2027 and will bring together faculty, fellows and ministry representatives from all eight EAC partner states. Registration will open in early 2027.
For media enquiries, contact the TEAM Newsroom at newsroom@teamuniversity.ac.ug.
