Also known as Amani Institute, the research institute was founded in 1902 by German colonists in German East Africa. It was established under the leadership of Dr Frantz Stuhlmann, who was in charge of the Department of Surveying and Agriculture of German East Africa. The Amani Institute started out as a biological-agricultural research centre, and came to be known as the Amani Biological-Agricultural Institute. But it quickly expanded into other areas of research in the following years. "The Amani Institute soon became a 'tropical scientific institute superior to anything in the British colonies and protectorates and comparable with Pusa in India or the Dutch establishment at Buitenzorg in Java." During their reign, the Germans had other research centres in the colony, especially in the northern region. "Although Amani was the most famous of Germany's colonial research stations, representing a 2-million-mark investment, it was only one of several German agricultural stations in the northern region. Another, named Kwai farm and located in the nearby West Usambaras, preceded Amani as the colony's chief center for agricultural and livestock experiments. Kwai lacked Amani's international reputation, but it nonetheless held a prominent place in the minds of the Africans who lived in its shadow." The Germans built other facilities, including schools and hospitals, in different parts of the country while ruling the colony. One of their biggest colonial achievements was in scientific research at the institutes they established in German East Africa, especially at Amani.
The German East Africa colony was renamed Tanganyika Territory in 1920 when the British took over, by a League of Nations Mandate, after the German Empire lost World War I. Other areas of research were added to the institute in 1960. Although the Amani Research Institute became world-famous during German colonial rule as a scientific research centre, it retained its international reputation after the British received control of the colony they renamed Tanganyika.
During World War I, the Amani Research Institute reinforced its international reputation in research when scientists at the centre developed various products. They included medicine and chemical products, from local material to meet war needs and those of the German settlers at a time when the colony was cut off from the rest of the world and could not import anything: "Considerable ingenuity was shown in producing in the colony manufactured goods and medical supplies normally imported from Europe. Quinine was made at the Amani Institute and at Mpwapwa....Dye-stuffs were made from native barks. In the first eighteen months of the war the Amani Agricultural Research Institute 'prepared for use from its own products 16 varieties of foodstuffs and liquors, 11 varieties of spices, 12 varieties of medicines and medicaments, 5 varieties of rubber products, 2 of soap, oils and candles, 3 of materials used in making boats, and 10 miscellaneous substances. Many of these were prepared in comparatively large quantities, e.g.15,200 bottles of whisky and other alcoholic liquors, 10,252 lb. of chocolate and cocoa, 2,652 parcels of toothpowder, 10,000 pieces of soap, 300 bottles of castor oil etc.' After the British took over, they were "impressed both with Amani's international reputation and the quality of research conducted there...and continued operating it as a research institute under the British postwar government. Amani therefore continued to function as an important center of botanical research and became a flash point for arguments over the value of pure versus applied research in Britain's East African colonies." The institute also became famous for its research in malaria during British colonial rule and was transformed in 1949 into the East African Malaria Unit. The research centre served not only Tanganyika but also Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar and British Somaliland in the prevention and control of malaria and other vector-borne diseases. It became the East African Malaria Institute in 1951 and was renamed the East African Institute of Malaria and Vector Borne Diseases in 1954. In the present day it maintains a high reputation in research, as the Amani Medical Research Centre, in the Tanga Region of Tanzania.
