UBx is the lead institution for the Decide TB project. Within the Bordeaux Population Health research centre at UBx, the Global Health in the Global South (GHiGS) team works on the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases (HIV, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, Ebola, Lassa, malaria, bacterial resistance), maternal and child health, and non-communicable diseases including malnutrition in Africa.

GHiGS aims at:
i) providing clinical and epidemiological data at individual and population-level, and conducting public health, community-based, as well as social sciences research;
ii) designing and evaluating innovative interventions to improve health outcomes in resource-constrained settings.

It currently supervises 14 PhD students, 7 of whom are African. GHiGS conducts high quality research in up to 30 countries including clinical trials, diagnostic cohorts, operational and implementation research.

Large studies in the field of infectious diseases (Temprano, TasP, TB-Speed) or malnutrition (Optima) have had an important impact at international level and contributed to WHO policy. GHiGS (Olivier Marcy, team director) was the coordinator of the TB-Speed study.

UNZA is the co-lead for Decide-TB. UNZA is a public university established by Act of the Zambian Parliament in 1964.
It is the largest university and leading research institution in Zambia. The School of Medicine is situated at a separate campus at the site the University teaching Hospital (UTH).
The institution offers other undergraduate and post graduate degree programs in Pharmacy, Nursing Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Physiotherapy, Environmental and Public Health. The UNZA/UTH has a long history of local and collaborative research which has influenced policy and practice and has greatly contributed to quality clinical services.
The institution is a hub for paediatric TB and HIV research and has participated in a number of multicentre collaborative research.
This research team has previously implemented impactful paediatric TB and HIV research including the SHINE and CHAPAS 1,2 and 3 trials and more recently the multicounty TB-Speed research project.
The team was a recipient 2018 EDCTP outstanding research team award given to the CHAPAS consortium.

The National TB and Leprosy Programme (NTLP) is one of the programmes in the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Zambia. Within the MOH structure, the NTLP falls under the Directorate of Public and Research.
The programme manager heads the NTLP, with various officers employed by the government and partners assisting the manager.
The NTLP is responsible for the overall oversight and coordination of TB in the country. TB services in Zambia are integrated into the general health systems. At the provincial, district, and health facility levels, there is a focal TB person who also performs other functions outside the TB programme.
Administratively, Zambia has ten provinces, 116 districts and over 3000 health facilities. The current diagnostic network includes about 300 GeneXpert machines deployed in 270 health facilities. Zambia has three culture laboratories.
The coverage of X-rays services are limited, with only 30 digital x-rays (7 of them are mounted in mobile vans). The NTLP derives its policies from the Ministry of Health guiding documents that include the National Health Strategic Plan (NHSP).
Implementing all TB services follows international normative guidance and procedures.
Since its re-organization in 2000, the NTLP has implemented six national strategic plans (NSPs). The current NSP runs from 2022-2026, with the overall goal of Ending TB in Zambia by 2030. TB financing is primarily domestic and international.

INS is a public entity for management, regulation and supervision of activities related to the generation of scientific evidence in Health in Mozambique and assumes its position in the resolution of the problem of tuberculosis in the country.
It was created, among others, to promote the development of research in Health and carry out clinical, biomedical, pharmacological, epidemiological, operational, socio-anthropological and health systems research, based on national priorities.
INS is currently led by a General Board comprised by the General Director, Deputy-General Director and four National Directors for the area of Health and Welfare Research, Public Health Laboratories, Training and Communication in Health and Inquiries and Health Observation.
The Centro de Investigação e Treino em Saúde da Polana Caniço (CISPOC) is arm of the Instituto Nacional de Saúde within Maputo City to conduct clinical research program in the field of tuberculosis.
The INS/CISPOC team led by Dr Celso Khosa contributed to the TB-Speed Decentralization, HIV, and Pneumonia studies, and to the RaPaed-TB study.

NTP MZ is the entity of the Ministry of Health that coordinates tuberculosis control actions in the country.
TB services are integrated into the National Health Service and System and decentralized throughout the network up to community level. About 27% have TB diagnostic units distributed at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, 8% have chest X-ray equipment and 70% of health units manage and monitor TB patients.

NTP Mozambique activities include the following components:
i) Community-engagement;
ii) TB/HIV Collaborative Activities that are supported by a technical group composed of different partners (e.g. CDC, Ariel Glaser, EGPAF, USAID);
iii) Care and Treatment for child TB, sensitive and Multi-Drug Resistant TB, which includes implementation research and pilot studies on short regimen for MDR-TB (B-Plus) and 3HP latent TB treatment and responsibility for developing guidelines for the clinical management of TB (13 manuals developed in 15 years). This receives support from a technical group (HIV-Program, MNCH, Ariel Glaser Foundation, USAID, CDC, UCLA);
iv) Management of Medicines and Laboratory Supplies;
v) Monitoring and Evaluation, Research and Innovation: which includes development of patient-based electronic records.

SU is one of the three highest ranked universities in Africa and is home to about 29,000 students from 100 different countries.
SU is a leading research-intensive higher education institution in Africa and is recognized as one of the three top research universities in South Africa with of the country’s highest proportions of postgraduate students and with most personnel research publications in South Africa.
Research at SU is driven by the notions of simultaneous excellence and relevance, informed by a diversity of people and ideas.
SU is internationally acknowledged as a world leader in the field of TB research (as confirmed by, inter alia, the global bibliometric co-citation analyses done via the Elsevier Scopus SciVal Spotlight Tool, identifying this as an area of unique competency at SU).
The research field with the top number of publications involving SU researchers is TB, where SU is the leading African university.
The Desmond Tutu TB centre (DTTC) is based within SU and is internationally renowned for excellence in the field of paediatric TB research.
DTTC’s expertise is based around three strategic research focal areas: Paediatric TB; Health Systems, Implementation and Operational Research; and HIV prevention through Community Randomized Trials, including a strong focus on high quality socio-behavioural research.

The Division for Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine of LMU has a singular standing in Germany.
It is also part of the German Centre for Infection Research (Deutsches Zentrum für Infektionsforschung, DZIF) and hosts the Translational Thematic Unit for TB (TTU TB).
Its extensive track-record of clinical studies on new health interventions include delivering a number of observational and interventional studies in the area of infectious diseases with African collaborators, particularly in TB and HIV.
These include the highly complex PanACEA MAMS TB 01, and SQ109 EBA trials.
Several diagnostic exploratory, verification, and validation studies have been hosted and coordinated by the division, which includes the prospective evaluation of diagnostic tests and platforms, for instance the evaluation of the performance of Xpert MTB/RIF in children.
LMU was the coordinator of the EDCTP-funded RaPaed-TB, a large prospective diagnostic validation study in children investigated for TB, which recruited close to 1,000 children across five countries.
RaPaed-TB study results will be partly integrated in the comprehensive TDA-based approach under evaluation in Decide-TB.

USFD is a member of the Russell Group of leading UK research universities and ranked within the top 100 in the QS World University rankings.
The School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) has particular strengths in health economic evaluation, modelling to inform policy decisions, and systematic reviewing.
The department employs over 300 multi-disciplinary staff, attracts over £10 million a year in research awards and ranked 2nd for ‘Impact’ and 4th for ‘Power’ for its Health Research in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework.
Previous collaborations include TB-Speed (UBx) and other paediatric TB projects (SU), and the EDCTP-funded TREATS consortium.

IRD is under the joint authority of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development.
IRD supports an original model of equitable scientific partnership and interdisciplinary, citizen, sustainability science committed to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The IRD TransVIHMI research unit, also affiliated to the INSERM and the University of Montpellier is conducting interdisciplinary research projects, with a continuum across research, capacity building and intervention.
Its main scientific aim is to study the specificities (microbiological, epidemiological, clinical and social) of HIV and other endemic infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases (filariasis), and emerging infectious diseases.
Maryline Bonnet who is coordinating TB research activities in the TransVIHMI research unit is a medical epidemiologist with expertise in tuberculosis diagnostic evaluation in children and was one of the three coordinating investigators of the TB-Speed project.
She is participating in two ongoing EDCTP-2 projects on innovative treatment approaches for hospitalised TB-HIV co-infected patients (DATURA project) and patients with TB meningitis (INTENSE TBM project).

Eduardo Mondlane University is the largest and oldest public university in Mozambique, created in 1964.
The Department of Political Science and Public Administration has a long experience of policy analysis and research on policy implementation in Mozambique, together with the Centre for African Studies (CEA) and the Centre for Policy Analysis (CAP), and within collaborations with anthropology and sociology researchers.
The Department has strong relations with Sciences Po Bordeaux and Les Afriques dans le Monde, in terms of research, training and teaching.

Imperial College London is ranked in the top ten universities globally and is one of the world leaders in the application of science and technology to biomedical research, with translation directly into patient care.
The University carries out high-quality research from the wide range of discovery and translational science programs and though a strong focus on partnership with healthcare and multidisciplinary collaborations.
Imperial has a long-standing commitment to Global Health with multiple studies being carried out in partnership with colleagues in countries with disadvantaged populations. The Faculty of Medicine at Imperial is at the forefront of cutting-edge research benefitting patients and populations worldwide and is home to more than 1,400 academic and research staff.
The Department of Infectious Disease within the Faculty has a long-standing tradition of TB research with a particular focus on the evaluation of biomarkers to diagnose TB disease.
James Seddon is a Reader in the Department and has very strong links with colleagues in London.
In addition, he holds an honorary appointment at the DTTC, SU, where he is based for most of his time, carrying out child TB research, with a particular focus on the interface between biomarkers and clinical decision-making.