The HIV Research Trust is a charitable foundation that provides financial support to physicians, nurses, scientists and other health care professionals in resource-poor settings working in the field of HIV infection. The Trust supports early/mid career researchers (from doctoral students to group leader level).

The support is in the form of Scholarships which are usually for a few months' duration and cover travel, living expenses and consumables. The Scholarships are awarded competitively based on a peer-review process on an annual basis. They are designed to enable the candidate to travel to another research unit to learn skills and techniques which should develop the candidate's career and, on return to the home institution, add to the capacity of the department to carry out research related to treatment and prevention.

Examples of skills and techniques that may be acquired are; clinical management; clinical trial experience and practice, data and trial management; statistical expertise; acquisition of laboratory techniques and analyses; cell and molecular biology.

The HIV Research Trust aims to support a broad mix of disciplines. All aspects of research related to HIV infection and its consequences are eligible including clinical care, basic and applied biology, epidemiology, psychological ethical, economic, educational and societal aspects.