The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM; Filipino: Surian sa Pananaliksik ng Medisinang Tropikal) is a health research facility based in Muntinlupa, Philippines.

The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine is headed by a director, and is organized into five divisions - Laboratory Research, Clinical Research, Biologicals Manufacturing, Administration, and Finance.

The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine is located in what is now Filinvest City, a central business district in Alabang, Muntinlupa. The site was originally part of the Bureau of Research and Laboratories (BRL) compound of the Philippines' Ministry of Health (now the Department of Health (Philippines)). The RITM was incorporated into the new "Filinvest Corporate City" when the latter was established as a business district in 1995.

The RITM is tasked by the Philippine Department of Health and the Philippine Government to supervise, plan, and successfully implement research programs to prevent and to control prevailing infectious and tropical diseases in the Philippines. This includes research involving the advancement of vaccines and medications used by medical professionals, such as physicians, nurses, and medical technologists, that they utilize whenever patients they handle are under the diagnosis and treatment of infectious and treatable and curable diseases. The institute also trains medical and health workers in order to be further educated in their fields in relation to the management of tropical infectious diseases. Formulation of plans and research projects involving biological products proposed and currently utilized by the Philippine Department of Health are also covered by the functions of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, including the manufacture of biologic products and vaccines.

The origins of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine began in 1964 when a Philippine-Japan Joint Commission on Cholera Research was first established during the Diosdado Macapagal administration - the beginning of a cooperation which eventually evolved into the RITM. This cooperation initially began as a tripartite initiative between Japan, the Philippines, and the World bank, and then evolved into a bilateral arrangement between Japan and the Philippines. After the successful conclusion of this engagement, talks about expanding the collaboration between the two countries to cover tropical diseases more broadly began in earnest.

By the early 1980s, negotiations between "mutually interested parties" within the governments of the Philippines and Japan had been going on for several years, and reached finally reached a breakthrough in 1981 in the form of a grant-in-aid agreement under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

With the help of this Japanese grant, a US$8 million facility was constructed within the Ministry of Health's Bureau of Research and Laboratories compound in Alabang, Muntinlupa.

With the construction already well underway, Malacanang then issued Executive Order (EO) 674 on March 25, 1981, formally authorizing the Philippine Ministry of Health to establish a research facility to implement a basic and applied research program for tropical medicine in the Philippines, pushing both for health advancement and for medical research.^{[full citation needed]}