King's College London

AMARI-II is an African-led consortium of six African and two UK universities focused on advancing mental health research. Prof. Dixon Chibanda of the University of Zimbabwe and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is the Director of AMARI.  Building on the success of its first phase, which launched in 2015, AMARI-II (2023-2027) aims to further develop African leadership in mental, neurological, and substance use (MNS) research.

AMARI-II will select and train 85 research fellows at masters (n=18), PhD (n=24) and post-doc (n=10) levels in research excellence and leadership and provide internships (n=33) to key policy programme stakeholders at local, national, and regional levels.

Students with diverse backgrounds in psychiatry, psychology, medicine, and allied disciplines will be recruited and registered at one of the six African universities in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa, Ghana, and Zambia.

AMARI-II will build technical mental health research abilities through an MPhil program and will provide international mentorship and supervision for the fellows.

Additional researcher career development skills will be delivered, including implementation research skills required to take to scale promising initiatives from AMARI-I and new initiatives in AMARI-II.

The initiative is funded by the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training (DELTAS) programme of Science Africa, with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and The Wellcome Trust.

The research by the AMARI fellows will include topics such as:

• What is the acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of culturally-appropriate interventions for mental disorders in African countries?
• What is the validity and reliability of instruments for assessing mental health needs and outcomes in African countries?
• What are the social determinants of mental health in African countries?

The role of King’s College London

King’s College London plays a pivotal role in AMARI-II. The College provides third supervisors for fellows’ PhDs in mental health research and a Train the Trainers course in researcher career development. Prof. Melanie Abas and Steph Ray (AMARI manager) are on the steering committee and Dr. Lola Kola and Prof. Abas sit on the training and professional development committees. Prof. Eka Ikpe and colleagues in Nairobi from the African Leadership Centre are teaching the fellows on an African leadership course.

Key partners/ co-investigators involved:

• Professor Dixon Chibanda (Principal Investigator, University of Zimbabwe)
• Dr Walter Mangezi (University of Zimbabwe)
• Professor Exnevia Gomo (University of Zimbabwe)
• Professor Katherine Sorsdahl (University of Cape Town)
• Professor Claire van der Westhuizen (University of Cape Town)
• Professor Atalay Alem (Addis Ababa University)
• Professor Chiwoza Bandawe (Kamuzu University of Health Sciences)
• Dr Benedict Weobong (University of Ghana)
• Dr Ravi Paul (University of Zambia)
• Professor Ritsuko Kakuma (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
• Professor Helen Weiss (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)