MSc Global Health Policy

The MSc in Global Health Policy will enable you to understand current and future global health policy challenges, to critically question the interplay between knowledge, evidence, policy-making and power, and to design sustainable and equitable policy solutions.

This interdisciplinary social sciences programme is designed to provide you with the knowledge and skills you need for real-world global health influence. It combines theory and practical applications through a range of taught units and a policy evidence toolkit, and through independent work which may be either a dissertation or a work-based unit with a host organisation.

You will learn about some of our most pressing transnational health and care challenges, such as pandemic response and preparedness, the health impacts of climate change and poverty, ageing, mental illness, food security, migration and health, and global increases in long-term health conditions.

Research-rich units will encourage you to apply critical analyses of policymaking to global health case studies within and between Global North and Global South geographies.

Teaching is led by staff who specialise in social and public policy, sociology, global governance, social inequality and poverty, political economy, and epidemiology. You may also be taught by guest lecturers who influence and make global health policy, and will have opportunities to develop campaigns, interventions and research projects that directly address key priorities in the field.

You will gain insight into social science research design using qualitative/quantitative or mixed methods and learn how to evaluate data quality and relevance in different contexts. This learning is extended by your exposure to a toolkit of applied evidence approaches such as health impact assessments, realist evaluation and systems thinking – all of which are in increasing demand in the sector.

If you choose to apply for the Work-Based Applied Research Project unit, you may have the opportunity to further embed these skills by working on a co-produced research-based project with a host organisation.

The MSc Global Health Policy will also support you to develop communication, engagement, evidence interrogation, knowledge translation and co-production skills.

This programme will provide you with the opportunity to examine the power dynamics of a fluid global sector of critical importance and to become the change-makers of the future.