Conclusion of the Two-Day Meeting of INPACT with the Approach of Developing a Master's Degree Program in Global Health

This two-day kick off meeting was attended by the representatives of the partner European universities, the EU representative, the Iranian Educational Deputy of Ministry of Health, TUMS Vice Chancellor for International Affairs and his administrators, Vice Chancellor for International Affairs of Kerman University of Medical Sciences and the President of the National Institute for Health Research.

On the second day of this online meeting, which was hosted by TUMS School of Public Health and aimed to launch a master's degree in global health at TUMS with a focus on Eastern Mediterranean issues, including the health of migrants and refugees, climate change, environmental and man-made crises, epidemiological transition issues, pandemic infectious diseases and the establishment of the Center of Excellence in global health education, numerous highly cited speakers from universities in Iran and other parts of the world shared their experiences and their relationship with the work packages of this project.

At the beginning of the second day, Dr. Amirhossein Takian, Head of the Global Health Department of the School of Public Health and the Project Manager of the INPACT project, spoke about the goals and outcomes of this cooperation and global partnership. He, then, invited Dr. Reza Majdzadeh, Professor at TUMS and Principal Investigator and Dr. Remco Van De Pas, European Project Coordinator from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, to review the main topics of the first day with emphasis on the importance of adapting the global health program to the needs of the region.

Then, Professor Anneli Milen from the University of Tampere, Finland, explained the innovative teaching methods in the design of the global health course and said: "In designing this course, we must act in a skill-oriented manner and use the required skills as a criterion for the development of the next course."

Afterwards, Professor Flemming Kondradsen, Head of the Department of Global Health at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, presented the university's experience in launching a master's degree in global health, and Dr. Rita Mojtahedzadeh, Vice Dean for International Affairs at the TUMS Virtual School, introduced the university's e-learning capabilities.

Then, Professor Albrecht Jahn from the University of Heidelberg, Germany spoke about the experience of the University of Heidelberg in offering virtual courses, e-learning and existing capacities and platforms.

Professor Meri Koivusalo, from the University of Tampere in Finland, also explained the characteristics of a quality global health department from the organizational and institutional point of view.

At the end of the meeting, partners and invited speakers discussed Iran's capabilities in curriculum development, virtual education and the establishment of a global health education Center of Excellence, and it was decided that the INPACT project management team use different experiences available to them to design a master's degree program in global health.

It is worth noting that this course will be the first official course in global health education in Iran, the East Mediterranean region and West Asia, which is being formed after three years of continuous efforts by professors of TUMS with the pivotal role of the Department of Global Health and Health Policy. Also, among the five work packages of the Iran-EU cooperation project, one package is dedicated to the needs assessment and measures taken in the field of developing a master's degree in global health, which started months ago and has been approved by this group.

According to Dr. Amirhossein Takian, Vice Dean for International Affairs of TUMS School of Public Health and the project manager, the next meeting of the Steering Committee of this project will be hosted by TUMS and Maastricht University of the Netherlands in the next six weeks.