In the coming five years, billions of dollars of new funds will join the fight against global AIDS. These funds will be allocated by a relatively small and identifiable group of AIDS professionals around the world. One important component of allocation decisions will be experience to date: which interventions are and are not working in different regions of the world?

Unfortunately, there currently is no cogent compilation of global AIDS research by intervention type or region. Policymakers are left to base funding decisions on anecdote and extrapolation. What is needed is a new research initiative, the Global Research Map. The initiative will combine a comprehensive literature categorization with supplemental surveys to produce a topography of global AIDS research.