sorry, i rarely put things of myself. but this one i had to.
Friday, 13 November 2015
Saturday, 29 August 2015
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@Routledge_PHSC, use #HealthInequalities.
Share the collection with your followers: http://bit.ly/Health_Inequalities
Tuesday, 4 August 2015
Global Justice - Taking Stock Conference - Wenar, Caney, Lichtenberg, Dumitru - 10 September Georgetown University
Global Justice, Taking Stock -- Pre-Conference event at the HDCA annual conference
10 September 2015
Georgetown University
Leif Wenar, King's College London
Simon Caney, Oxford University
Judith Lichtenberg, Georgetown
Speranta Dumitru, Université Paris Descartes
Due to limited space, registration is required. https://globaljustice2015.eventbrite.co.uk
The new millennium opened with much activity in global justice philosophy. The initial debates about cosmopolitanism versus nationalism have now largely died down without it being clear which side won. Some global justice scholars say the way forward is more engagement with empirical evidence and methods (Blake & Taylor Smith, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Others argue that the recognition of a plurality of contexts of justice within and beyond the state will be the distinctive mark of future global justice theorizing. There is even the further argument that while philosophers should attend to the best science of our day, philosophers should be more ambitious and frame theories about the world that the social scientists have not tested and, perhaps, cannot yet test.
A one-day ‘pre-conference' event before the annual Human Development and Capabilities Association (HDCA) conference will take stock of the current state of global justice theorizing. Global justice philosophy and engagement with 'real world' empirical evidence and methods has been a long standing and defining aspect of the capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The pre-conference event aims to bring together some of the leading thinkers to reflect on the state of the field including Leif Wenar (King’s), Simon Caney (Oxford), Judith Lichtenberg (Georgetown), and Speranta Dumitru (Univ. Paris Descartes.)
The global justice pre-conference event is open to all and will finish at 4:00 PM. Participants can then also attend the opening plenary session of the annual HDCA conference featuring presentations by Martha Nussbaum and others on the conference theme of capabilities and human aspirations.
Participation in the annual HDCA conference in the days following is encouraged. But it is not a requirement for participating in the pre-conference event. It is open and free to all academics. All voluntary donations will help offset cost of conference materials.
HDCA 2015
The annual Human Development and Capability Association conference brings together international scholars and practitioners that seek to build an intellectual community focused on the ideas of human centered development and the capabilities approach.
"Capabilities on the Move: Mobility and Aspirations" September 10-13, 2015
http://hd-ca.org/conferences/2015-conference-washington-d-c
Abstracts:
Blood Oil: Tyranny, Resources, and the Rules That Run the World (2016)
by Leif Wenar
' Tyranny, war, corruption and terrorism follow oil and other natural resources—because of the same law that once allowed the slave trade and genocide, conquest and apartheid. The West can lead the world beyond blood oil and conflict minerals to a more united, enlightened future. '
Global Justice: Recent Trends and New Directions
Simon Caney
‘I will discuss ways in which the debate about global justice has evolved, and seek to identify the main methodological and substantive issues and debates. I will also suggest new directions for future research.’
Distant Strangers: Ethics, Psychology, and Global Poverty
Judith Licthenberg
‘In Distant Strangers Judith Lichtenberg shows how a preoccupation with standard moral theories and with the concepts of duty and obligation have led philosophers astray. She argues that there are serious limits to what can be demanded of ordinary human beings, but this does not mean we must abandon the moral imperative to reduce poverty.’
Equal Accessibility
Speranta Dumitru
Prof. Dimutru will be pressing a paper on ‘equal accessibility’ as a principle of justice in mobility inspired by the CA and applicable to different groups (migrants, disabled, gender, etc.).
Due to limited space, registration is required. https://globaljustice2015.eventbrite.co.uk
If you have problems with registration, please contact sridhar.venkatapuram(at)kcl.ac.uk.
Tuesday, 21 July 2015
Thursday, 16 July 2015
NIH Fogarty Emerging Global Leader Program for Low Middle Income Country Researchers
New career development program launched for LMIC scientists
July / August 2015 | Volume 14, Issue 4
Photo by Richard Lord for Fogarty
Recognizing the struggle scientists in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) can face in carving out time to gain research experience and skills, Fogarty has launched a new mentored junior faculty career development award, called the Emerging Global Leader program. The initiative's overarching goal is to build research capacity at foreign institutions and foster long-lasting collaborations to benefit science.
To be eligible, applicants from LMICs are required to have worked at least a year at an LMIC institution, which must be willing to release the faculty member for three-quarters of their work time, so they can pursue mentored career development activities and a research project that both addresses a health priority in their country and has potential to garner further grant support.
Grants will provide up to five years of funding and require input from mentors from both the U.S. and the LMIC, who each are accomplished investigators in the proposed research area and experienced in guiding independent investigators. In addition to Fogarty, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) are also participating in the program, and additional partners may join.
The new award, using the K43 mechanism, is similar to Fogarty's existing career development award targeted at U.S. scientists interested in global health, the International Research Scientist Development Award (IRSDA) (K01). Fogarty has also reissued the IRSDA program, a longstanding program that provides protected time for global health research and career development activities. The program requires grantees to spend half their award period conducting research in an LMIC.
The application deadlines are Dec. 16, 2015 for the new Fogarty Emerging Global Leader Award and March 2, 2016 for the IRSDA.
More Information
- Learn more about the new Fogarty Emerging Global Leader Award for LMIC scientists, and the International Research Scientist Development Award (IRSDA) for U.S. scientists.
Saturday, 6 June 2015
by Amartya Sen: The Economic Consequences of Austerity
Amartya Sen: The economic consequences of austerity [1]
The judgements of our financial and political leaders are breathtakingly narrow. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen considers the alternatives.
The judgements of our financial and political leaders are breathtakingly narrow. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen considers the alternatives.
by Amartya Sen [2] Published
Austerity for one, austerity for all: The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28th June 1919 by William Orpen (1919). Photo: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
On 5 June 1919, John Maynard Keynes wrote to the prime minister of Britain, David Lloyd George, “I ought to let you know that on Saturday I am slipping away from this scene of nightmare. I can do no more good here.” Thus ended Keynes’s role as the official representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference. It liberated Keynes from complicity in the Treaty of Versailles (to be signed later that month), which he detested.
Why did Keynes dislike a treaty that ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers (surely a good thing)?
Keynes was not, of course, complaining about the end of the world war, nor about the need for a treaty to end it, but about the terms of the treaty – and in particular the suffering and the economic turmoil forced on the defeated enemy, the Germans, through imposed austerity. Austerity is a subject of much contemporary interest in Europe – I would like to add the word “unfortunately” somewhere in the sentence. Actually, the book that Keynes wrote attacking the treaty, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, was very substantially about the economic consequences of “imposed austerity”. Germany had lost the battle already, and the treaty was about what the defeated enemy would be required to do, including what it should have to pay to the victors. The terms of this Carthaginian peace, as Keynes saw it (recollecting the Roman treatment of the defeated Carthage following the Punic wars), included the imposition of an unrealistically huge burden of reparation on Germany – a task that Germany could not carry out without ruining its economy. As the terms also had the effect of fostering animosity between the victors and the vanquished and, in addition, would economically do no good to the rest of Europe, Keynes had nothing but contempt for the decision of the victorious four (Britain, France, Italy and the United States) to demand something from Germany that was hurtful for the vanquished and unhelpful for all.
The high-minded moral rhetoric in favour of the harsh imposition of austerity on Germany that Keynes complained about came particularly from Lord Cunliffe and Lord Sumner, representing Britain on the Reparation Commission, whom Keynes liked to call “the Heavenly Twins”. In his parting letter to Lloyd George, Keynes added, “I leave the Twins to gloat over the devastation of Europe.” Grand rhetoric on the necessity of imposing austerity, to remove economic and moral impropriety in Greece and elsewhere, may come more frequently these days from Berlin itself, with the changed role of Germany in today’s world. But the unfavourable consequences that Keynes feared would follow from severe – and in his judgement unreasoned – imposition of austerity remain relevant today (with an altered geography of the morally upright discipliner and the errant to be disciplined).
Aside from Keynes’s fear of economic ruin of a country, in this case Germany, through the merciless scheduling of demanded payments, he also analysed the bad consequences on other countries in Europe of the economic collapse of one of their partners. The thesis of economic interdependence, which Keynes would pursue more fully later (including in his most famous book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, to be published in 1936), makes an early appearance in this book, in the context of his critique of the Versailles Treaty.
“An inefficient, unemployed, disorganised Europe faces us,” says Keynes, “torn by internal strife and international hate, fighting, starving, pillaging, and lying.” If some of these problems are visible in Europe today (as I believe to some extent they are), we have to ask: why is this so? After all, 2015 is not really anything like 1919, and yet why do the same words, taken quite out of context, look as if there is a fitting context for at least a part of them right now?
If austerity is as counterproductive as Keynes thought, how come it seems to deliver electoral victories, at least in Britain? Indeed, what truth is there in the explanatory statement in the Financial Times, aired shortly after the Conservative victory in the general election, and coming from a leading historian, Niall Ferguson (who, I should explain, is a close friend – our friendship seems to thrive on our persistent disagreement): “Labour should blame Keynes for their election defeat.”
If the point of view that Ferguson airs is basically right (and that reading is shared by several other commentators as well), the imposed austerity we are going through is not a useless nightmare (as Keynes’s analysis would make us believe), but more like a strenuous workout for a healthier future, as the champions of austerity have always claimed. And it is, in this view, a future that is beginning to unfold already in our time, at least in Britain, appreciated by grateful voters. Is that the real story now? And more generally, could “the Heavenly Twins” have been right all along?
***
There are many odd features of the experience of the world since the crisis of 2008, beginning in the United States. One of them is that what began as a clear failure of the market economy (particularly fed by misbehaving financial institutions) soon looked like a problem of the overstretched role of the state. The crisis, when it came, was seen – rightly, I believe – as a failure of the operation of the private financial institutions, and led to a huge demand for reinstating some of the state regulations, particularly of the financial markets, that had been gradually eliminated in the US economy through piecemeal eradication (beginning in the Reagan presidency but continuing through Democratic administrations). However, after the massive decline in 2008 of financial markets and of business confidence had been halted and to some extent reversed through the intervention of the state, especially through stimulating the economy, often paid for by heavy public borrowing, the state had large debts to deal with. The demand for a smaller government which had begun earlier, led by those who were sceptical of extensive public services and state provision, now became a loud chorus, with political leaders competing with each other in frightening people with the idea that the economy could not but collapse under the burden of public debt.
Similarly, at the international level, the global free fall following the 2008 crisis was largely halted by the move, under the visionary leadership of Gordon Brown, for a meeting of the governments of the newly formed G20 in April 2009 in London, each promising to do its best not to feed the downward spiral by domestic complicity. This turned a page in the history of the crisis successfully, but soon the story changed, with the governments being asked to get out of the way before they ruined healthy business activities.
Turning to the management of debts, suddenly the idea of austerity as a way out for the depressed and heavily indebted economies became the dominant priority of the financial leaders of Europe. Those with an interest in history could easily see in this a reminder of the days of the Great Depression of the 1930s when cutting public expenditure seemed like a solution, rather than a problem. This is, of course, where Keynes made his definitive contribution in his classic book, the General Theory, in 1936. Keynes ushered in the basic understanding that demand is important as a determinant of economic activity, and that expanding rather than cutting public expenditure may do a much better job of expanding employment and activity in an economy with unused capacity and idle labour. Austerity could do little, since a reduction of public expenditure adds to the inadequacy of private incomes and market demands, thereby tending to put even more people out of work. There is, of course, more to Keynes’s full theory than that, but the common-sense summary just presented is gist enough.
However, the financial leaders of Europe had a different reading – from Keynes and from a great many mainstream economists – of what was needed, and they were not going to budge from their understanding. As it is quite common these days to blame economists for failing to see the real world, I take this opportunity to note that very few professionally trained economists were persuaded by the direction in which those in charge of European finances decided to take Europe. The European debacle demonstrated, in effect, that you do not need economists to generate a holy mess: the financial sector can generate its own gory calamity with the greatest of elegance and ease. Further, if the policy of austerity deepened Europe’s economic problems, it did not help in the aimed objective of reducing the ratio of debt to GDP to any significant extent – in fact, sometimes quite the contrary. If things have started changing, over the past few years, even if quite slowly, it is mainly because Europe has now started to pursue a hybrid policy of somewhat weakened fiscal austerity with monetary expansion. If that is a half-hearted gesture towards Keynes, the results are half-hearted, too.
There is, in fact, plenty of evidence in the history of the world that indicates that the most effective way of cutting deficits is to resist recession and to combine deficit reduction with rapid economic growth. The huge deficits after the Second World War were easily tamed with fast economic growth in the postwar years (I will come back to this issue later). Something similar happened during the eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency of the United States, when Clinton began with a huge deficit and ended with none, thanks largely to rapid economic growth. Again, the much-praised reduction of the Swedish budget deficit during 1994-98 occurred in a period of fairly fast growth of GDP. Despite political deadlocks and a largely non-functional Congress, the United States has been much smarter than Europe, on this occasion, in making use of this central understanding. The ratio of deficit to GDP has fallen in the US thanks to economic growth, which – rather than austerity – is of course the well-tried way of achieving the desired result.
Had the policy leaders of Europe (adherents of a peculiarly narrow view of financial priority) allowed more public discussion, rather than taking unilateral decisions in secluded financial corridors – encouraging no public discussion – it is possible that the policy errors could have been prevented, through the standard procedures of deliberation, scrutiny and critique. It is remarkable that this has not happened in the continent that gave the world the basic ideas of institutional democracy. The big epistemic failure in missing the lessons of the past on revival, deficit reduction and economic growth is not only a matter of wrong turns taken by the financial leaders, including the European Central Bank, but also of the democratic deficit in Europe today. It is no consolation that most of the governments in the eurozone that deployed the strategy of austerity lost office in public elections that followed. Democracy should be about preventing mistakes through participatory deliberations, rather than about making heads roll after mistakes have been made. This is one of the reasons why John Stuart Mill saw democracy as “government by discussion” (a phrase coined, along Millian lines, by Walter Bagehot), and this demands discussion preceding public decisions, rather than following them.
***
How was it possible, it has to be asked, for the basic Keynesian insights and analyses to be so badly lost in the making of European economic policies that imposed austerity? Some of the dominant figures in the financial world have had a long-standing scepticism of the economic relations on which Keynes focused which is being emended only now, with reality checks being made in observations of the penalty of the neglect of Keynesian relations. The bold plan by the new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, which we have every reason to welcome, to deliver a trillion euros of “quantitative easing” (not unlike expanding the money supply) – with decisive expansionary effect – is a result of that belated recognition which is slowly changing the European Central Bank: that expansion rather than contraction is what the economy needs.
If failing to understand some basic Keynesian relations is a part of the explanation of what happened, there was also another, and more subtle, story behind the confounded economics of austerity. There was an odd confusion in policy thinking between the real need for institutional reform in Europe and the imagined need for austerity – two quite different things. There can be little doubt that Europe has needed, for quite some time, many serious institutional reforms – from the avoidance of tax evasion and the fixing of more reasonable retiring ages to sensible working hours and the elimination of institutional rigidities, including those in the labour markets. But the real (and strong) case for institutional reform has to be distinguished from an imagined case for indiscriminate austerity, which does not do anything to change a system while hugely inflicting pain. Through the bundling of the two together as a kind of chemical compound, it became very difficult to advocate reform without simultaneously cutting public expenditure all around. And this did not serve the cause of reform at all.
This is a simple enough point, and it is surprising how difficult it has proved to be to get this across. I have to confess to humbling failure in making an impact on the policymakers through my efforts on this by addressing the European Commission, the IMF, the Bank for International Settlements, and joint meetings of the World Bank and the OECD, starting in the summer of 2009.
An analogy can help to make the point clearer: it is as if a person had asked for an antibiotic for his fever, and been given a mixed tablet with antibiotic and rat poison. You cannot have the antibiotic without also having the rat poison. We were in effect being told that if you want economic reform then you must also have, along with it, economic austerity, although there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the two must be put together as a chemical compound. For example, having sensible retiring ages, which many European countries do not (a much-needed institutional reform), is not similar to cutting severely the pensions on which the lives of the working poor may depend (a favourite of austeritarians). The compounding of the two – not least in the demands made on Greece – has made it much harder to pursue institutional reforms. And the shrinking of the Greek economy under the influence mainly of austerity has created the most unfavourable circumstances possible for bold institutional reforms.
Another counterproductive consequence of the policy of imposed austerity and the resulting joblessness, for Keynesian reasons, has been the loss of productive power – and over time the loss of skill as well – resulting from continued unemployment of the young. The rate of youth unemployment is astonishingly high in many European countries today; more than half the young people in Greece have never experienced having a job. The very process of the formation of human capability, on which Adam Smith put emphasis as the real engine of economic success and human progress, has been quite badly mishandled through the tying together of uncalled-for austerity (which no country really needed) with necessary reform (which many European countries did need).
More than 200 years ago, Adam Smith specified with much clarity in The Wealth of Nations how to judge the good functioning of a well-run economy. Good political economy, Smith argued, has to have “two distinct objects”: “first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the publick services”.
The father of modern economics, and the pioneering champion of the market system, did not have any doubt why the role of the state fits integrally into the demands of a good society. Public reasoning over generations has increasingly vindicated and supported Adam Smith’s broad vision. There are good reasons to think that it would have done the same today had open and informed public dialogue been given a proper chance, rather than being ruled out by the alleged superiority of the judgements of financial leaders, with their breathtakingly narrow view of human society and a basic lack of interest in the demands of a deliberative democracy.
***
It is certainly true that the policy of austerity has been advertised as the reason behind the comparative success of the British economy. This comparison is, however, with Europe, which has been in a bigger hole than Britain, with a more vigorous imposition of austerity, particularly in some countries (Greece is of course the extreme example of that – with the big shrinking of its economy, rather than having economic growth). The relatively positive growth in recent years does not make Britain’s overall experience of growth over the period of austerity particularly impressive, if we look beyond Europe. Not only is the price-adjusted GDP per capita in Britain today still lower than what it was before the crisis in 2008, but also, in the period of recovery from the low of 2009, GDP per capita has risen far more slowly in the UK than in the US and Japan (not to mention some of the faster-growing Asian economies).
Could the British voters, then, have missed the real story? That is possible, and I shall come to that possibility presently, but the voting figures do not quite bring out a groundswell of approval in favour of austerity. There is no question that Labour had a severely bad election, and has lost ground, not just in Scotland, and must rethink its priorities as well as strategies quite radically. But the parties forming the coalition government – the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – had support from more than 59 per cent of the total vote in the election before last in 2010 (that is, before they sprang the surprise of austerity on the British public); yet the coalition parties together have managed to get only around 45 per cent in this election – after the experience of austerity. Not quite a heady success for the vote-getting ability of austerity. The Tories did get a clear majority of seats on their own (and have good reason to celebrate that outcome), but this achievement came with only 37 per cent of the votes. The success here is just like that of the Hindutva-oriented BJP in India in the elections last year, when it got 31 per cent of the ballots cast but a substantial majority of parliamentary seats. Before we start getting our economic theories from the reading of election results, we have to scrutinise a bit more the message that comes through from the votes and the seats in the constituency-based electoral systems that the UK and, following it, India happen to have.
What is not in doubt, however, is that the general public in the UK, following the crisis of 2008, has become increasingly nervous about the size of the public debt and also about the ratio of public debt to GDP. What is overlooked here is that while a national debt may have many costs (and it is not paranoiac to keep tracking it), it is not quite like an individual person’s debt, which is owed to someone else (someone quite different). An internal national debt is mainly owed to another person in the same economy. Figures of seemingly large public debt may be handy enough to frighten a population with imagined stories of ruining the future generations, but the analysis of public debt demands more critical thinking than that, rather than drawing on a misleading analogy with private indebtedness.
There are two distinct issues here. First, even if we want to reduce public debt quickly, austerity is not a particularly effective way of achieving this (which the European and British experiences confirm). For that, we need economic growth; and austerity, as Keynes noted, is essentially anti-growth. Second, what is also important to note is that while panic may be easy to generate, the existence of panic does not show that there is reason for panic. No less importantly, the public has not always been scared stiff by the size of the public debt. The public debt-to-GDP ratio was very considerably larger in Britain in every year for two decades, from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, than it has been at any time since the crisis of 2008. And yet there was no panic then (when Britain was confidently establishing the welfare state), in contrast to the confused anxiety, not to mention the orchestrated fear, that seems to run down the spine of the terrorised British today, making austerity look like a fitting response.
When Britain went for pioneering the welfare state and established the National Health Service, among other ways of expanding the public services, with Aneurin Bevan inaugurating the Park Hospital in Manchester on 5 July 1948, the ratio of debt to GDP was larger than 200 per cent, much more than twice what it has been at any point in recent years. Had the British public been as successfully frightened about the debt ratio in those days, the NHS would never have been born, and the great experiment of having a welfare state in Europe (from which the whole world from China, Korea and Singapore to Brazil and Mexico would learn) would not have found a foothold. A decade later, when Harold Macmillan, as a buoyant new prime minister, told the British people in July 1957 that they had “never had it so good”, the size of government debt was more than 120 per cent of GDP – immensely higher than the ratio of roughly 70 per cent in 2010 when Gordon Brown was accused of mortgaging Britain’s future by profligacy.
The scare was not there from the late 1940s through the 1960s, with Labour as well as Conservative governments in office, perhaps because the scarers were more scarce then. And armed with good public services and a flourishing market economy, Britain steadily reduced its debt-to-GDP ratio through economic growth, while establishing the welfare state and a huge array of new public services.
Public knowledge and understanding are indeed central to the ability of a democratic government to make good policies. The Economic Consequences of the Peace ends by pointing to the connection between epistemology and politics, and arguing that we can make a difference to the world only by (in Keynes’s words) “setting in motion those forces of instruction and imagination which change opinion”. The last sentence in the book affirmed his hope: “To the formation of the general opinion of the future I dedicate this book.” In that dedication, there is enlightenment as well as optimism, both of which we strongly need today.
This is an edited version of a lecture delivered by Amartya Sen at the Charleston Festival in Firle, East Sussex, on 23 May
Amartya Sen is professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard and won the 1998 Nobel Prize for economics. He is the inaugural winner of the Charleston-EFG John Maynard Keynes Prize and the author of many books, including “The Idea of Justice” (Penguin)
Saturday, 30 May 2015
Young Professionals in Global Health Conference - Barcelona 25-26 June
Global Health NGN Conference - website here
"Ensure the Voice"
Barcelona 2015
Day 1 - Thursday 25 June
08.00 - 09.00
Registration Handout of conference material, guides and schedule.
09.00 - 09.30
Opening ceremony Welcome by GHNGN board, introduction of the conference by the representatives of the organizing committee and conference inauguration.
09.30 - 10.30
Plenary Session I: Global Cooperation in Global Challenges Chaired by a young professional in Global health, this session will discuss the main challenges in global cooperation and the role of young professionals in overcoming these challenges. The senior professionals represent the areas of politics, academia, research and fieldwork in global health. Prior to the conference, Professor Jeffrey Lazarus will engage with the participants through Twitter on a conversation on this subject and bring up your opinions and tweets to the other panelists, Ms. Leire Pajín, Dr. Oriol Mitjá and Ms. Elena Urdaneta. Chair: Dr. Vânia de la Fuente-Nuñez.
Click here to see the biographies of all the speakers
10.30 - 11.00 Coffee Break
11.00 - 14.00
Lectures: The Grand Global Health Challenge: In these lectures, our panelists and other invited senior professionals will give individual talks on the main challenges in global health
L1: Open access to information in Global Health by ScienceOpen
Communication is essential to science. The standard way of sharing ideas and experimental results is to publish them in the form of a research article in a scientific journal. This workshop will give an overview of several important aspects of the publishing process. How to choose a journal? What are the advantages of Open Access over pay-walled journals? What does it mean to transfer “Copyright” to a publisher? What are the alternative Creative Commons licenses? How does peer review work and what are alternatives? The scholarly publishing paradigm is changing fast with the digital generation introducing new forms of sharing and setting new standards. It is therefore essential for the next generation of young scientists to have a good overview of the evolving publishing landscape and make informed decisions. At ScienceOpen we strongly believe that scholarly publishing is not an end in itself, but the beginning of a dialogue to move the whole scientific venture forward.
Click here to visit ScienceOpen oficial website.
L2: One step closer to the eradication of a human disease
Information coming soon.
L3: A New look at Global Health by Elena Urdaneta.
information coming soon.
L4: Climate Change and Health (TBA)
information coming soon.
L5: LivingNepal response to emergencies (TBC)
information coming soon.
Click here to see the biographies of all the speakers
14:00-16:00 Lunch Break
16:00-18:00
Global Health Skill Workshops I: Senior professionals will impart the first round of skills-based workshops
W1. Global Health Leadership by Magda Rosenmöller
W2. The Sustainable Development Goals by Rafa Vilasanjuán/Gonzálo Fanjul.
19:00-21:00
Global Health Cinema and reception: Screening of the documentary by medicusmundi and Kanaki Films on the tortuous path that Mozambique is living in the construction of its public health system. Since its independence in 1975, Mozambique is a country in constant change. In this context, governments, foundations, NGOs and companies preach noble intentions that seek to improve the poor health for much of the population. "A Luta Continua" (The fight continues) reviews the progress, challenges and difficulties in building a health system for everyone in a country increasingly uneven and where, sometimes, aid strategies do not always move in the same direction.
This screening will be followed by a discussion on the construction of public health systems based on the strategy of primary health care and the role of international cooperation in the development of a country like Mozambique and it's health services and infrastructure.
Read more about this project: http://www.medicusmundi.cat/en/a-luta-continua
Day 2 - Friday 26th June
09.00 - 10.30
Plenary Session II: Ensure the voice of young professionals in Global Health Challenges: Chaired by a senior proffesional, this session will feature young global health leaders and professionals from different organisations and institutions. They will discuss how to ensure the voice of young professionals, with remarks on the comments and opinions made by the senior professionals on the first plenary session.
Chair: Professor Jeffrey V. Lazarus, University of Copenhagen and LUHS Medical Academy
Simone Mohrs, Germany – Swedish Network for International Health
Miguelhete Lisboa, Mozambique - PhD Student in International Health, NOVA University of Lisbon
Aymen Meddeb, Tunisia - Young Leaders for Health
Caity Jackson, Canada - This Week In Global Health
Abubakar S. Hoza, Tanzania - PhD student, Medical Microbiology, University of Leipzig
Fidel Buddy, Liberia - Union of Liberian Organizations in the UK
Click here to see the biographies of all the speakers
10.30 - 11.00 Coffee Break
11.00 - 14.00
Global Health Skills Workshops II: Young professionals from different institutions and organisations will host the second round of skills-based workshops (Participants will be asked to choose three workshops).
W1. Global Health 101: Multidisciplinarity solving issues by Abubakar hoza.
Through this workshop, it is envisaged that as global health participants, we will be able to develop partnerships skills and networks that will help developing countries design effective and sustainable measures that will help solve an important global health issue.
W2. How to establish a national network in the field of global health by the SNIH.
Within this workshop you will gain practical guide from two co-founders of Swedish Network for International Health (SNIH) on how to establish national and regional networks on your own area to strengthen the role of global health on a local level and to provide support for students and young professionals in the beginning of their career.
W3. Global health, Global network: Using social media to network into your global health career by Caity Jackson from TWIGH
In a time where our phones and technologies seem like extra limbs, it is a natural process that our networking game has moved past personal interaction and into the world of social media. This is great news for a subject that is in its name alone, a global field. This workshop will focus on highlighting the different social media channels and techniques to virtually network yourself in your desired career realm.
W4. Health in all policies: learning how to negotiate for health development by Aymen Meddeb from Young Leaders for Health.
This workshop is designed to be an introduction to negotiation for health development.
After a short theoretical introduction to the strategies and tools, the participants will engage in small groups in intersectorial negociations using different case studies. Finally, we will together analyse the process of negotiating, the outcomes and how strategies could be improved.
W5. Building sustainable research capacity in social determinants of health for LMICs
Lucinda Cash-Gibson, Nelly Salgado de Snyder and German Guerra, National Institute of Public Health (INSP), México. *[On behalf of SDH-Net EU Funded project.
The purpose of this mini- workshop is to:
-Highlight and jointly discuss the role of research to support local action to reduce health inequalities and the on-going challenges;
-Provide an overview of how to build sustainable research capacity in Social Determinants of Health (SDH) for Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) settings, based on the SDH-Net experience(http://www.sdh-net.eu/);
-Demonstrate the use of the capacity building resources developed and freely available in the SDH-Net virtual learning platform, including how to access and use them and provide an explanation of the usefulness of the material in different settings;
-Briefly pilot together one on-line SDH-Net courses: ‘Essentials of SDH’, and Jointly discuss the sustainability of SDH-Net products and similar actions; the role of South-North Global Health Research Collaborations; on-going challenges faced by LMIC researchers and national research systems; how policies and decisions makers can support the research capacity building process in LMIC.
W6. Find your PhD programme and learn what you need to know for a successful PhD application by PhD students from different programs:
-Xu Wang, China. PhD programme, evidence-based Medicine, Universite Rene Descartes, France
-Sofía Mira, Spain, PhD Transglobalhealth.
-Steven Marcos, Egypt. PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London (UCL).
-Camila González-Beiras, Spain. PhD Global Public Health, University of Porto and NOVA Unviersity of Lisbon, Portugal.
W7: Sanitation in rural and low-resource settings by MANAVTA
This will be an interactive workshop where participants will learn about sanitation in rural and low-resource settings. This will be done through simulating a community mobilizing intervention. Bring your creativity! We will need your participation!
W8. Ethics in Global Health by Vânia de la Fuente-Nuñez, UCL.
Click here to see the biographies of all the speakers
14.00 - 16.00 Lunch Break
16.00 - 17.30
Final Workshop: Find your way by Jordi del Bas. After last year's success, Jordi is back to help us "find our way" in global health with an updated version of his inspiring career workshop.
17.30 - 19.00 "
Free style" Mingling and drinks with GH professionals: Informal gathering at the university patio with professionals from different backgrounds and institutions.
19.00 - 19.30
GHNGN Projects: Introduction to our Mentorship Programme: The GHNGN upcoming mentorship program in collaboration with the SNIH aims to create multidisciplinary and international groups for advice and research. By Suvi Ristolainen, Finland, SNIH and Olumide Ogundeji, UK, GHNGN.
Click here to visit the Global Health Me, website!
19.30-20.00 Conclusions and Good-Bye
21.00 – Sunrise Tapas Dinner at Barceloneta Beach.
-Ensure the Voice of Young Professionals in Global Health-
The Global Health Next Generation Network 2nd Annual Summer Conference.
Conference Fee: 65 Euros* via PayPal or bank transfer
* Registration fees includes: conference materials, lunch, coffee breaks and a drink & tapas on Friday night at Barceloneta
Conference location:
Facultat de Medicina (Faculty of medicine, main entrance)
Carrer de Casanova, 143
08036 Barcelona
España
Subway station: hospital clinic (blue line)
More directions will be sent to you after registration.
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
India Public Health Research Fellowships due 15 June
| Original link found here Public Health Research Initiative (PHRI) Research Grant: 2015-16 |  |
Public Health Research Initiative (PHRI)
Public Health foundation of India (PHFI) in collaboration with Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB, A Statutory Body under Department of Science and Technology (DST)) aims to set up anextramural fund to provide the Indian researchers focused on public health from institutions of repute, as per an established process.
PHRI will enable young Indian researchers to carry out clearly defined research project at a place of their choice up to a period of 36 months.
Project Duration and Cost
These grants will be awarded for research studies of public health importance in India. The estimated amount of the available research grant is limited to 30 Lakh INR per fellowship. The total duration of the grant will not exceed more thanTHREE years.
Eligibility Criteria
The applicant must possess a Post-Graduate degree from an accredited institution in any domain related to public health, including medical and non-medical sciences, nutrition, physiotherapy, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, social sciences, law and humanities. It would be desirable if the applicant has a doctoral degree. (Applicants related to Biomedical, Biophysics and biochemistry are excluded from PHRI fellowships)
Age Criteria
The applicant must be40 years or less at the time of applying for the PHRI Research Grant, age relaxation of 5 years is applicable for female or if applicant belong to SC/ST/OBC then
Application procedure:
Candidates are requested to apply online
a) Online application formats with detailed guidelines are available at the website www.phfi.org Guidelines for Submitting a proposal
This should include the
Word limit: Not more than 3000 words (excluding references, Dissemination plan, Itemized budget and Curriculum Vitae) Font Style: Times New Roman Font Size: 12 with Line Spacing 1.5
Kindly note following should be mentioned while sending the grant application:
Area of work:
Area proposed by candidate should be clearly defined research area in any aspect of Public Health like Public Health Nutrition, Non Communicable Diseases, Infectious Diseases and Public Health Policy etc.
Place of work:
A project site in India, depending on the demand of the research study.
The PHFI reserves the right to reject the fellowship application in case candidate DOES NOT FULFIL minimum qualification or supplies any false information.
Public Health Research Initiative (PHRI) Fellowship: 2015
Online submission will close by 15 June 2015 after 5:00 PM.
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Friday, 8 May 2015
2015 HDCA Conference - Nussbaum, Heckman, Zedillo, Benhabib and more!!
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Tuesday, 28 April 2015
CONF: Global Justice Philosophy in 2015 - Taking Stock (HDCA Pre-Conference)
Global Justice Philosophy in 2015 -Taking Stock
Pre-conference event at Human Development & Capability Association Conf.
Georgetown University, 10 September 2015
The new millennium opened with much activity in global
justice philosophy. The initial debates
about cosmopolitanism versus nationalism have now largely died down without it
being clear which side won. Some scholars of global justice say the way forward
is more engagement with empirical evidence and methods (Blake & Taylor
Smith, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Such engagement with 'real world'
empirical evidence and methods has been a long standing
and defining aspect of the capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen and
Martha Nussbaum. Others argue that the recognition of a plurality of contexts
of justice within and beyond the state will be the distinctive mark of future
global justice theorizing. There is even
the further argument that while philosophers should attend to the best science
of our day, philosophers should be ambitious and frame theories about the world
that the social scientists have not tested and perhaps, cannot yet test.
A one-day 'HDCA Pre-conference' event takes stock of the
current state of global justice theorizing. The day begins with Leif Wenar
presenting from his new book Blood Oil which exemplifies engagement with
empirical evidence. Other scholars will present work taking new directions in
global justice theorizing. And the day will conclude with the opening plenary
session of the HDCA conference featuring a presentation by Martha Nussbaum.
Participation in the annual HDCA conference that follows
is greatly encouraged. But it is not a requirement for participating in the
pre- conference event. Donations will
help offset cost of conference materials.
The annual Human Development and Capability Association
conference brings together international scholars and practitioners that seek
to build an intellectual community focused on the ideas of human centered
development and the capabilities approach.
"Capabilities on the Move: Mobility and
Aspirations" September 10-13,
2015
Blood Oil: Tyranny, Resources, and the Rules That Run the
World (2016)
by Leif Wenar
' Tyranny, war, corruption and terrorism follow oil and
other natural resources—because of the same law that once allowed the slave
trade and genocide, conquest and apartheid. The West can lead the world beyond
blood oil and conflict minerals to a more united, enlightened future. '
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Paul Farmer Lecture - 20 April 2015 - 1700 GMT - livestream link
When: 20th April 2014 at 6:00pm BST / 7:00pm CET (check time around the world).
Venue: King’s College London, Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom
You can join the lecture by:
- coming to the event in London
- following livestreaming from the event at kapuscinskilectures.eu
- asking your questions to Paul Farmer via Twitter using #KAPTalks hashtag
Registration for the event is closed for now (we reached room capacity). You can still send a request to be on the waiting list by sending an email here.
Please note that the event will be livestreamed at http://kapuscinskilectures.eu.
Remind me about livestreaming:
Organized in partnership with:Survey article: the moral/human right to health
Find original link here
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2014.995505
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
Review article: the moral right to health: a survey of available conceptions
Benedict E. Rumbold
DOI:10.1080/13698230.2014.995505
Published online: 07 Apr 2015
Abstract
In recent years, there has been increasing recognition of both the philosophical questions engendered by the idea of a human right to health and the potential of philosophical analysis to help in the formulation of better policy. In this article, I attempt to locate recent work on the moral right to health in a number of historically established conceptions, with the aim of providing a map of the conceptual landscape as to the claims expressed by such a right.
Keywords
rights, human rights, health, health care, justice, moral
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
USA wants to be the healthiest country by 2030
From the American Public Health Association. 'Americans believe that we are the healthiest in the world....but we rank 34th in life expectancy.' Original link can be found here. also www.nphw.org.
APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, welcomes you to National Public Health Week 2015, which is themed “Healthiest Nation 2030.” Photo by APHA
In 1995, former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed Proclamation 6776 recognizing National Public Health Week calling upon “all Federal, State, and local public health agencies to join with appropriate private organizations and educational institutions in celebrating this occasion with activities to promote healthy lifestyles and to heighten awareness of the many benefits good health brings.”
Twenty years later, we’re kicking off National Public Health Week 2015 with a bold goal tied to this year’s theme, “Healthiest Nation 2030.”
What does this mean? Simply put, American are not the healthiest people in the world. We spend more on health care but live shorter lives and suffer more health issues than our peers in other high-income countries. To create the healthiest nation, we all need to start by pledging — and you cansign our pledge right here — to take two steps: creating a healthy me and creating a healthy we.
Each day we’ll emphasize a different way to move us closer to becoming the healthiest nation.
- Monday, April 6: Raising the Grade. The U.S. trails other countries in life expectancy and other measures of good health, and this holds true across all ages and income levels. Too many people, including some of our political leaders, still believe we have the best health care in the world. We have great doctors, state-of-the-art hospitals and are leaders in advanced procedures and pharmaceuticals – yet our health ranks poorly when compared to other countries. To kick off NPHW 2015, the public health community will come together to talk frankly about what the data reveal about America’s public health.
- Tuesday, April 7: Starting from ZIP. Today, your ZIP code says too much about your health. Within the United States, there are unacceptable disparities in health by race and ethnic group, state by state and even county by county. The effort to make the U.S. the Healthiest Nation in One Generation starts with equity across our communities. During the second day of NPHW 2015, the public health community will shine a light on local/state/regional disparities.
- Wednesday, April 8: Building Momentum. Influential leaders, companies and organizations are taking important steps in line with creating the healthiest nation: just look at recent actions by CVS, America’s major food and beverage companies, RWJF, the American Planning Association, Michelle Obama, and many others. On the third day of NPHW 2015, the public health community will outline major recent changes and what they mean for our health.
- Thursday, April 9: Building Broader Connections. In the work to become the healthiest nation, we can’t do it all on our own. We have to expand our partnerships to collaborate with city planners, education officials, public, private and for-profit organizations – everyone who has an impact on our health. During NPHW 2015, the fourth day will focus on communities mapping the network of partners and connections needed in their areas to make the U.S. the Healthiest Nation in One Generation.
- Friday, April 10: Building on 20 Years of Success. 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of APHA coordinating National Public Health Week, and the accomplishments of the public health community over the last two decades are significant, such as a 25-year improvement in the average lifespan for Americans and a 70 percent reduction in HIV/AIDS-related deaths. During the fifth day of NPHW 2015, the public health community (and especially public health student leaders!) will come together to celebrate these and other accomplishments and bring a renewed focus to the work ahead – and what it will take to become the Healthiest Nation in One Generation.
Check out our infographic to find out why we live shorter lives and suffer more health problems than peers in other countries, and how together, we can change this.
National Public Health Week events include Monday’s NPHW kickoff forum webcast; Tuesday’s National Healthy Schools Day celebration; Wednesday’s NPHW Twitter Chat;; Thursday’s Public Health Research Day; and Friday’s Public Health Student Day.
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