The Official Kick off Meeting of The Iran European Partnership For Capacity-Building and Teaching In Global Health (INPACT) Will Be Held Online On November 18th And 19th, 2020

Dr. Amirhossein Takian, Vice Dean of International Affairs of TUMS School of Public Health and the project manager of the INPACT, announced this news. He pointed out that TUMS School of Public Health, together with the National Institute for Health Research and Kerman University of Medical Sciences and the universities of Maastricht, the Netherlands; Heidelberg, Germany; and Tampere, Finland, have formed a consortium and succeeded in receiving a grant from the EU. This grant is dedicated to the project towards capacity building in the field of global health education for three years.

Dr. Takian stated that the cooperation of this group for the implementation of the project started a few months ago, and the establishment of a master's degree in global health at TUMS to address the issues in North Africa, West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean Region will be one of the main aspects of this project.

Dr. Takian said that the importance of global health as one of the main capabilities for sustainable development of societies after the COVID-19 epidemic in the world has become clear to everyone, and launching this course at the School of Public Health with the cooperation of a significant number of Iranian and international scientists can fill the present gap. He added: “Part of the project budget will be allocated to the establishment of a Center of Excellence for Global Health Education in the School of Public Health, and the purpose of launching this center will be to facilitate scientific communication between Iranian and world scientists and to implement educational programs.”

Dr. Takian also announced that the Educational Deputy of the Iranian Ministry of Health, the TUMS Chancellor, the TUMS Vice Chancellors for Research and Education, the presidents of the consortium member universities and a group of Iranian and international scientists and researchers would attend at the inaugural meeting to support and advocate for the project. According to Dr. Takian, after inaugural meeting, specialized meetings on the five work packages of the project will begin.

In the framework of this two-day program, guests from different countries and universities such as the Dean of the Faculty of Health from Aga Khan University of Pakistan, the representative of the World Health Organization in Iran, the Head of the Global Health Department of the Thammasat University of Thailand, the EU Representative in Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and scientists from European universities will join the event and speak about the work packages.

In the end, Dr. Takian stated that the INPACT online kick off meeting, as one of the projects of the Erasmus Plus program of the European Union, was to be held in Tehran in person, but the COVID-19 pandemic conditions paved the way for its virtual implementation.