The Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC) is an autonomous organization that was established in 1991 as a limited liability not-for-profit joint venture between the Uganda Ministry of Health (MoH), Ministry of Defence and Makerere University Medical School (now Makerere College of Health Sciences). The Centre was established to respond to the HIV/AIDS challenge which was at the peak by that time.

At its inception, the centre was supported by a grant from the Ugandan Government that was used to renovate the initial building that housed the JCRC offices at Bulange, Mengo and provided the basic equipment to start work.

JCRC pioneered the use of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) in sub-Saharan Africa as early as 1992 through a research project to determine the lowest effective dose of Zidovudine.