University of Ghana has been selected to host an international postgraduate training scheme for Masters and PhD level students, providing full scholarship to up to 10 Masters and 5PhDs students each year. The training will be focused on implementation research, which supports the identification of health system bottlenecks and approaches to address them. Professor John Gyapong, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Development is the Lead person on this Project.
TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, has provided the award. TDR is hosted at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, where it is co-sponsored by UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and WHO.
The University of Ghana is one of seven universities from low- and middle-income countries that have been selected to manage these grants. There are three universities in Africa, 2 in Asia, and 1 each in Latin America and the Middle East. Each will serve students from their regions.
The new plan will provide up to US$13 million in support for over 200 PhD and Master’s degree students in the next 4 years. The grants are available to students from low- and middle-income countries. The goal is to enhance graduate training capacity and boost the number of researchers in these countries, and provide regional support through these universities and the Regional Training Centres supported by TDR.
Professor Richard Adanu, Dean of the University of Ghana School of Public Health said, “The School of Public Health is extremely delighted to be able to make such a major contribution to the training of Public Health researchers and practitioners in the region. He described this as “a development that goes to prove that University of Ghana is a leader in postgraduate education in Africa.”
TDR Director John Reeder says, “This is a sea change for us. We are moving from managing individual training grants from Geneva to strengthening ongoing programmes at major universities in disease-endemic countries, where the work needs to take place.”
Grant applications will be released on 15th June, 2015 for the coming academic year 2015/2016. Recipients will be enrolled as postgraduate students, and their careers will be tracked with the new TDR Global alumni and stakeholder platform that will be launched in the next year, providing ongoing monitoring of the impact of the programme, as well as networking and increased visibility opportunities for students.
Of the 49 applications submitted, 7 were selected for site visits and approved for funding. Each university is expected to manage around 5-10 postgraduate fellowships supported by TDR each year.
In addition to the University of Ghana, the other 6 grantee institutions are: James P. Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Bangladesh, Universidad de Antioquia, National School of Public Health, Colombia, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, American University of Beirut, Faculty of Health Sciences, Lebanon, University of Witwatersrand, School of Public Health, South Africa, University of Zambia, Department of Public Health, Zambia.
About University of Ghana
Established in 1948, the University of Ghana is located in Accra. The University’s School of Public Health (SPH) http://www.publichealth.ug.edu.gh/ was developed in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service and has a reputation for leadership and competence in the field of implementation research. The School offers courses in English leading to masters and doctoral degrees in Public Health with concentrations on biostatistics, epidemiology, health policy and planning and applied social sciences in health. The School hosts the TDR-supported Regional Training Centre for Africa where the competence is focused on implementation research. The total student enrolment for University of Ghana is over 38 000 with 13% of this number registered for graduate studies.
For more information at the University of Ghana, contact: Ms Empi Baryeh ebaryeh@ug.edu.gh;
About TDR
TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, is a global programme of scientific collaboration that helps facilitate, support and influence efforts to combat diseases of poverty. TDR is hosted at the World Health Organization (WHO), and is co-sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and WHO.
For more information about the overall TDR grant programme, contact: Olumide Ogundahunsi (ogundahunsio@who.int)
TDR website: www.who.int/tdr
TDR research capacity strengthening programmes: http://www.who.int/tdr/capacity/en/
More on TDR Global: http://www.who.int/tdr/news/2015/networking-opport-develpd/en/
