Based at Queen Margaret University (QMU) in Edinburgh, the Institute of Global Health and Development (IGHD) has over thirty years experience specialising in postgraduate education and research.

IGHD started its work offering one of the UK’s first Postgraduate Diplomas in Primary Health Care aimed at students from the ‘Global South’. Following a period of research and teaching growth and development, the institute’s most recent change – a rebrand in 2016 – highlighted the essential connections between health and development. The rebrand reflects the Institute’s interdisciplinary approach and focus on meaningful collaboration and partnerships between the global North and South to effectively tackle shared challenges.

This interdisciplinary approach is at the core of IGHD’s identity. Researchers hail from fields including epidemiology, medical anthropology, political economy, geography, and beyond. This provides a cross-pollination of perspectives that sets the institute apart, allowing for nuanced and holistic approaches to the complex challenges of global health and development. 

“We don’t work in silos,” explains Dr Marcia Vera-Espinoza, Deputy Director of IGHD. “Our research areas are highly interconnected, but with different viewpoints which leads to healthy discussions, collaboration and learning from each other.” 

The involvement of researchers from various disciplines is critical for IGHD to develop long-term solutions to complex health issues at their roots, for example by better understanding global power dynamics and governance structures affecting health systems, access and provision.

Community engagement and forging meaningful partnerships with organisations and communities around the world is an important part of the way IGHD works. 

“For many years our work has been mostly focused on low and middle income countries, working in partnership with communities and organisations in the majority world,” explains Dr Vera-Espinoza. “But from lots of discussions with our partners we’ve come to recognise that the global and local are connected and can learn a lot from each other.”

Dr Vera-Espinoza describes how the institute has noticed the parallels between the issues researchers observe in the global South and the ones being seen where they are based in Scotland. “The backlog in the NHS, the difficulties in accessing healthcare for example – these are problems that transcend borders and require a global perspective to address.”

“We’re not looking to transfer knowledge from north to south,” Vera-Espinoza emphasises. “We want to create a two-way exchange, where we can learn from the innovative approaches being developed in the global South and how we can apply them to our own context as well.”

As well as hosting a large and diverse PhD program, the institute’s on-campus and online Masters programs attract a diverse cohort of students from around the globe, bringing their own unique experiences and perspectives.

“The classroom is a melting pot of ideas and insights,” says Dr Vera-Espinoza. “Our students come from a wide range of countries and backgrounds – doctors, nurses, teachers, and more – and the learning experience becomes very lively for all of us. I learn from my students constantly.”

Options for Masters at IGHD include an MSc in Sexual and Reproductive Health with a strong emphasis on rights-based approaches, recognising the critical importance of empowering individuals and communities in matters of health and wellbeing. “This program is particularly timely, given the growing threats and ongoing global discussion around reproductive rights,” notes Dr Vera-Espinoza. 

For those seeking a wider perspective, the MSc in Global Health provides a comprehensive exploration of the complex interplay between health, development, and the broader social, political, and environmental factors that shape health outcomes worldwide.

Addressing the growing need for mental health support in crisis-affected communities, the MSc in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support equips students with the knowledge and skills to design and implement effective interventions in humanitarian and development contexts, which draws on the expertise of their faculty and the insights of global partners.

Complementing these on-campus offerings, IGHD has also recently launched online programs, including an Msc in Global Health and an Master in Public Health reflecting their commitment to making high-quality education accessible to a wider audience,” Dr Vera-Espinoza explains. “We have a lively online program of more than 120 students, which is an exciting development for people who are working full time or prefer the remote learning option.”

Teaching at IGHD has a strong emphasis on being research-led and partnership focused, as faculty members actively engage in cutting edge projects that inform the curriculum. Students don’t just learn from textbooks, but have the chance to connect with the latest research and hear directly from the experts working on the ground through IGHD’s researchers. Guest lecturers, who are IGHD partners, such as from humanitarian organisations working in Ukraine, Iraq or Turkey, also allow students and staff to exchange and learn.

One standout in IGHD’s research agenda is the Institute’s involvement in the FCDO-funded ReBUILD for Resilience programme, which examines health system resilience in fragile settings experiencing violence, conflict, pandemics and other shocks. IGHD shares research directorship with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and IGHD specifically leads projects within the consortium on health financing, health worker incentives, performance-based financing, and demography and health needs.

Another key area of work is a partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Health System Resilience, Enhancement and Refugee Response Project aims to document and learn from different approaches to meeting the health needs of refugees. ”We are working to understand the evidence and insights on how refugees are included or integrated into national health systems and their universal health coverage efforts, and what we can learn from different experiences from across the world by working with case studies and partners in Peru, Iraq, Zambia, Mauritania, Kenya and Pakistan,” Dr Vera-Espinoza explains. 

These are only two examples of the many research projects IGHD is leading or involved in as part of the Institute’s key research areas: health systems and health financing, refugee integration, mental health and psychosocial support, as well as the intersections between health, mobility and climate change.  

With large projects like these one could easily think that IGHD is a large institute within a large university, but they are a small institute of 16 researchers, doing big things. 

“We are a small but a modern university, with a maturity built on a long history of serving the community, both locally and globally” notes Dr Vera-Espinoza. “It can be a tendency in the UK when we talk about debates in development and global health to focus on the big Russell Group universities. But modern universities have excellent work to showcase that we do individually and collectively,” she points out. 

It’s part of showcasing their work that makes membership of the DSA important to IGHD. They are becoming increasingly active in making the most of their membership, such as Masters graduate Misbah Haqani, who was highly commended in the 2023 DSA Dissertation prize. 

IGHD has been a member of the DSA for a long time, as they find it an important place where healthy, critical discussions can take place to form solutions. IGHD is keen to invite DSA members to engage actively with their researchers, particularly in areas where global health and development debates intersect. “We increasingly see that the nexus between development, humanitarianism, and global health debates are necessary, because one cannot be understood without the other one,” says Dr Vera-Espinoza, “and there’s a contextualisation there that is needed for us to understand not only how the world works and governance structures work, but also the things that happen in the field.”

To find out more visit the IGHD website or get in touch.