ot least Sub-Saharan Africa, where there are many long-standing research collaborations including in the Gambia (where the MRC unit, https://www.mrc.gm/faq/, formerly linked to and now part of the LSHTM, traces its origins back 70+ years), Malawi (Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit, www.meiru.info/history, established in 1980), Tanzania (eg, Grosskurth et al;2 Ng’weshemi et al3 and the establishment of the Mwanza Intervention Trials Unit in 2006, https://mitu.or.tz/) and Uganda.4 Reflecting this, for many years, student recruitment from Sub-Saharan Africa was rather ad-hoc, and typically linked to the needs and opportunities arising from these on-going research projects (eg, analysis of household dynamics data from Karonga, Malawi;5 Chirwa et al;6 see also Kampikaho and Tumwesigye7)