The Imperial College Centre for African Research and Engagement (ICCARE)

Professor Kathryn Maitland, Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation's Centre for African Research and Engagement, introduces the centre and talks about why it's an important resource at Imperial.


Imperial has a wealth of scientists and engineers working across the African continent in a diverse range of health and environmental research programmes, yet there is no single resource on the Imperial website that captures this diversity or scope of our work. The formation of a ‘virtual’ Africa Centre within the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) aims to provide a portal that assembles our research, education and policy (engagement) and synthesises this information under recognisable and logical themes within this resource (ICCARE).

IGHI holds regular forums to highlight key challenges being addressed by our work in Africa. These discussions will focus on particular health or environmental problems to encourage dialogue between researchers with different backgrounds, a north-south and south-south exchange, cross-fertilisation of ideas and enhance translational research. ICCARE would, therefore, facilitate the development of interdisciplinary partnerships, drawing on the full range of facilities, skills and expertise within Imperial.

The ICCARE website aims to provide a portal via newsfeeds for our partners to publicise their latest research outputs or awards for rapid dissemination, discussion and uptake of new ideas and findings. The website will act as an important source and catalyst in the pathway of our research outputs, concerning policy and practice.