Reliable and relevant research can help to improve tuberculosis control worldwide. In recent years, various organisations have assessed research needs and proposed priorities for tuberculosis. We summarise existing priority statements and assess the rigour of the methods used to generate them. We found 33 documents that specifically outline priorities in tuberculosis research. The top priority areas were drug development (28 articles), diagnosis and diagnostic tests (27), epidemiology (20), health services research (16), basic research (13), and vaccine development and use (13). The most focused questions were on the treatment and prevention of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in people co-infected with HIV. Methods used to identify these priorities were varied. Improvements can be made to ensure the process is more rigorous and transparent, and to use existing research or systematic reviews more often. WHO, Stop TB Partnership, and other organisations could adopt an incremental process of priority development, building on the existing knowledge base.