About us
The Consortium of Universities for Global Health is committed to helping address the large and growing health and development workforce deficits especially in low- and lower-middle income countries. These training capacity shortages can be addressed through this online platform that aims to connect individuals and institutions who wish to partner with each other. This platform, open to all who register, lists institutional training needs and available institutional training resources, as well as existing training programs and available mentors and mentees globally. We encourage you to register through this platform and explore partnerships with other institutions, post and find training programs, and connect with a mentor. The goal of the platform is to connect training capacity gaps to expertise and resources globally to address the workforce shortages needed to improve health and sustainable development outcomes.
Merit: The World Health Organization (WHO) has projected a deficit of 18 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle income countries (LMICs). This critical human resources deficit has an overwhelming impact on health and development outcomes. Key contributing factors include a lack of qualified trainers and mentors and the challenge of connecting existing expertise and established training programs to areas and individuals with identified training capacity gaps. The Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) is exceptionally well-positioned to help address this massive global health challenge by bringing partners together.
Statement of Purpose: This initiative aims to empower institutions and individuals in low resource settings to drive partnership engagement in ways that are most beneficial to their own needs and context by specifying priorities for training capacity development across clinical, technical, and research domains. The CUGH Capacity Strengthening Platform helps to identify and aggregate training and mentorship needs from low resource setting institutions and share this information with the global community. Institutions are also able to post training capacity resources, expertise, and available mentors. Then, global health stakeholders from any setting can directly approach institutions and individuals with complementary priorities to explore partnership development, training program participation, and mentorship opportunities aimed at strengthening training capacity in clinical and research domains.
Stakeholders: Individuals at academic institutions, nongovernmental organizations, health facilities, governmental agencies, international organizations, and private agencies are able to register and access postings on the CUGH Capacity Strengthening Platform.
Focus: The platform currently has two main focal points.
1) A General Database: The primary database is general in focus covering technical or clinical and research domains across a wide range of professions that may have relevancy to global health including medicine, public health, economics, social sciences, and law, as examples.
2) An Implementation Science Database: We are piloting a secondary access point with a focus on Implementation Science. Individuals, institutions, and programs with the goal of strengthening capacity in implementation research are able to directly engage through this focused area of the database. We intend to build out other focused areas in the future.
Functionality: Through the platform, individuals can register and develop a profile while associating themselves with an institution. Individuals then create postings relevant to three potential matching areas: 1) Partnership Development, 2) Established Training Programs, and 3) Mentorship. Registrants can search the site to identify potential matches, securely communicate directly through the platform to connect, and report the impact of any developed partnerships for the benefit of the wider global health community.
Posting:
1) Partnership Development – For individuals seeking an institutional partnership, there are two types of postings that can be entered in order to facilitate matching. Individuals are able to submit postings relevant to either a) Training Capacity Gaps OR b) Training Capacity Expertise and Resources at their institution.
2) Established Training Programs – Registrants may post open enrollment training programs that are offered through their institution. These are variable duration training programs open to individuals external to the institution that do not require the development of an institutional partnership.
3) Mentorship – Registrants may post their intention to act as a mentor or to seek mentorship.
Partnership Development, Established Training Program, and Mentorship postings may be categorized according to clinical vs research focus, audience type, discipline, training level, and domain, if relevant. For Partnership Development and Established Training Program postings one may also specify additional relevant details such as preferred training or timing, duration, scope, preferred language, partner engagement arrangement, format, setting, enrollment modality, cost, and relevant certification or degree.
Privacy: All contact information registered through this platform remains private and is not posted publicly. Registrants are able to connect to each other through the internal messaging platform to ask questions and explore opportunities for partnering. These messages are not accessible outside of the platform. Each registrant has full control of when their own contact information is shared with other individuals.
Scope: The activities of the CUGH Capacity Strengthening Platform are contained within the scope of cataloging needs and capacity and sharing these needs online. CUGH will not engage in the direct creation or maintenance of any partnerships.
CUGH supports academic institutions and partners to improve the wellbeing of people and the planet through education, research, service, and advocacy.