University of Oxford: The University of Oxford launches fully online Postgraduate Diploma in Global Health Research to tackle inequities in health research leadership 

Accepting its first students in October 2023, the postgraduate diploma is the University’s first academic qualification designed to be taken wholly online and will transform Oxford’s ability to reach and train researchers in the most challenging of settings. It aims to strengthen health workforces’ research capacity, regardless of location and context, to meet ongoing and emerging global health challenges and crises.

The course will be delivered remotely over four terms by international experts at the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, and will include pre-recorded interactive lectures, discussion forum tasks, live virtual classes, and weekly one-to-one tutorials.

Designed to support the careers of dedicated and ambitious health professionals and researchers across the globe and from every setting, it will teach students how to design, operate and report a high-quality health research study anywhere in the world and how to put findings into practice. In particular, enabling individuals facing the challenges of diseases of poverty and in the most resource-poor settings to develop scientific, management and leadership skills to tackle these diseases. 30% of course participants will be supported with fully funded scholarships.

Professor Trudie Lang, Head of The Global Health Network, University of Oxford said: ‘I’m delighted at the launch of the Postgraduate Diploma in Global Health Research. We have created this course to help address the global disparities in health research by teaching the skills needed to run studies in every healthcare setting. An ideal student could be a highly experienced nurse working in a large public hospital in Bangladesh or Ethiopia, a laboratory scientist in Peru, or members of national and international funding and ethics committees, or those working in regulatory bodies.

I’m also very proud that this will be Oxford’s first qualification where travelling to Oxford is not required and that 30% of our intake will have funded places – this is truly transformational and brings true global and diverse access to a qualification from the University of Oxford.’

Professor Martin Williams, Pro Vice Chancellor of Education, University of Oxford said: ‘The launch of the Postgraduate Diploma in Global Health Research shows that Oxford continues to be at the forefront of meeting the challenges of widening access head-on. Alongside the many outreach programmes we run in the UK and overseas, it is another excellent example of our commitment to ensuring talented students around the world can access Oxford’s world-leading teaching and expertise, without financial concerns acting as a barrier.’