School of Public Health

The project is funded by the Global Health Academy, an initiative of the German Alliance for Global Health Research (GLOHRA). This training repository project is being developed by a consortium of three institutions, the Population Medicine and Health Services Research group (AG 2) at Bielefeld University, the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH) and the Global Health Alliance Deutschland (GHA-D).

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The core project team includes:

From AG 2, School of Public Health, Bielefeld University

• Prof. Dr. Kayvan Bozorgmehr (also Heidelberg University Hospital)
• Victoria Saint

From Heidelberg Institute of Global Health

• PD Dr. med. Olaf Horstick
• Anna Munz

From Global Health Alliance Deutschland

• Dr. med. Matthias Havemann

The project’s overarching goal is to create an online portal – a gateway into global health research training in Germany that is responsive to the needs of researchers. The project is being facilitated by tapping into the collective institutional, experiential and scientific knowledge of the GLOHRA community.

The repository will enable researchers, particularly in the early- and mid-career stages, to explore and compare current training offers based on their discipline, interests and location and to find relevant information as well as plenty of inspiration for advancing their global health careers.

This project will garner perspectives and inputs from early career researchers passionate about global health up to established and senior researchers Germany’s global health landscape. This multi-stakeholder cooperation will ensure relevant outcomes and encourage global health researchers from all career stages and diverse disciplinary backgrounds to collaborate and strengthen the German global health workforce. The project includes three major components, described below.

The formative research aims to explore the perspectives and experiences of early-, mid- and senior-career researchers in Germany. This includes their education, training and career pathways as well as their perspectives regarding education and training barriers and needs. Seven semi-structured key-informant interviews were conducted in October/ November 2021 with researchers working in the global health field. Building on the interviews, an online survey was conducted in April/May 2022 to garner experiences and perspectives from researchers across Germany working in various disciplines on global health. The final stage included two focus group discussions that aimed to garner feedback and perspectives on the key findings from the interviews and survey and to identify additional aspects of global health research education and training in Germany considered important. The final report for Component A is expected to be submitted to GLOHRA in Summer 2023.

The second project component aimed to systematically identify training offers for global health researchers in Germany and map relevant information about each course or programme (e.g. content, requirements, fees, application process, etc.). The data acquisition was informed by the findings of Component A. Based on the extensive online research of existing training offers in the field, criteria for the design and key categories/filter options for the repository were identified. The data is currently being used to develop the Beta version of the web-based repository (see Component C). This will be published in a soft launch together with an online survey. The survey with GLOHRA members and institutions will aim to garner feedback about the repository, in particular information about additional education and training offers related to global health.

The consortium has developed the database, scope statement and initial wireframe for the online portal. The GLOHRA Secretariat, together with external contractors, are responsible for the development and realisation of the portal. The repository will be searchable by a range of relevant tags or categories, for example, discipline and course/programme type and level. The repository is currently under development, with expected completion in 2023.