On May 4, 2020, when celebrating the 122nd anniversary of its founding，Peking University announced the establishment of the Institute for Global Health and Development, aimed at leveraging the University wide resources to build a leading research institution in responding to the global health and human development challenges in the 21st century. Today’s world is undergoing unprecedented changes, and China, as a globally leading economy, is actively promoting globalization and positive reform of the global governance system. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has profoundly highlighted the importance and urgency of global health in human development. The spread of COVID-19 not only seriously threatened human health, but also triggered unprecedented crises in economic growth, social stability, and governance in countries around the world.
Peking University Institute for Global Health and Development, from a cross-border perspective, will study global health in the framework of human development: exploring solutions to major health issues around the world, promoting China’s active participation in global governance, and contributing global public goods for the health, and wellbeing of mankind. At the same time, it will train future leaders in global health, breaking through the talent bottleneck, and improve China’s ability to participate in global health governance. Thus, China may better assume its important responsibility and public obligation to advance global health.
Peking University Institute for Global Health and Development, through scientific research, think tank services, talent training, and industry-academia research cooperation, is committed to promoting China’s involvement in sustainable, inclusive human development on the basis that human health is a fundamental value shared by all countries.
Global health is an emerging, cross-sector discipline that developed rapidly in the 1990s against the backdrop of globalization. Differing from the traditional public health discipline, global health transcends national borders and focuses on human health development. It is a field dedicated to solving health and sanitation problems faced by mankind as a whole, at the same concerned with preserving the delicate balance of human-animal-environmental ecology, a concept referred to as “One Health.”
Global health emphasizes a transnational, cross-sectoral, and multidisciplinary approach to the promotion of human health. Global health governance and policy-making is based on the fundamental values of respecting human rights and guaranteeing social justice, so that everyone around the world enjoys the highest level of health and wellbeing. Global health governance promotes the joint participation of many actors, including those in traditional and innovative, state and non-state, health and non-health sectors. Through diverse diplomatic negotiation, the rules, standards, and norms of global health are formulated, and the effect of global health policies are jointly monitored and evaluated. Global health research is highly interdisciplinary, encompassing related fields such as medicine, economics, management, international relations, sociology, and other disciplines.
Peking University Institute for Global Health and Development will build faculty capacity through global recruitment for full-time employment as well as dual appointment of the current PKU faculty members from related disciplines. In particular, it will draw rich faculty and research resources from various schools and institutions on both the main campus and health science centers, including the School of Public Health, School of Basic Medical Sciences, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, National School of Development, Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development, School of Economics, Institute of Population Research, School of International Studies, Guanghua School of Management, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, College of Environmental Sciences, College of Engineering, and School of Journalism and Communication. At the same time, It will conduct global search to recruit leading scholars focusing on emerging and cutting-edge disciplines currently experiencing talent shortages within the University.
Peking University Institute for Global Health and Development will admit doctoral and master’s students domestically and abroad, aiming to train the future generations of leaders with international vision and research capacity in the field of global health for academia, public service, and business sectors. The graduate programs will be conducted with effort to collaborate with leading universities in the world. It will also provide a well-funded platform to train post-doctoral research fellows that are from both domestic and international institutions.
