Dundee ranked 7th in UK for impact on global health

Published On Sun 25 Jan 2015 by Roddy Isles

The University of Dundee is ranked 7^th in the UK for its impact on global health in a new league table launched at the January 2015 meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health.

Compiled by Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) and Medsin-UK, the ranking criteria considered levels of innovative research activity and free access to online research information. The All-Party Parliamentary Group is chaired by Lord Nigel Crisp, former NHS Chief Executive and now member of the House of Lords.

“The group is particularly interested in the level of investment in global health research in neglected diseases that affect primarily the world’s poorest,” explained Professor Peter Mossey, Associate Dean for Research at Dundee Dental School and a steering group member of the University’s Tayside Institute for Global Health (TIGH).

“A key measure is whether universities share new discoveries in ways that ensure medicines reach people in developing countries at affordable prices.”

A third of all people in the developing world cannot access affordable, life-saving medicines. Furthermore, while over 1500 drugs have been created over the past three decades, only 21 were developed to tackle ‘neglected diseases’ – known as such because they affect 1 in 6 of the world’s population, mainly in developing countries, but receive little commercial research support because most sufferers are too poor to pay for new medicines.

Publicly-funded research institutions, including universities, are being encouraged to tackle this problem by focusing more on ‘neglected diseases’. 

The University of Dundee is actively engaged in global health issues across a broad range of disciplines, including but not confined to health where life sciences, medicine, nursing have significant impact and also dentistry, where Professor Mossey is Director of a World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre that supports global programmes in the areas of craniofacial abnormalities and dental public health.

In Life Sciences, Dundee has pioneered a new approach with its Drug Discovery Unit, which was created to boost the development of drugs to tackle the foremost diseases of the developing world.

TIGH is an inter-disciplinary collaboration with a focus on learning, research and direct service in predominantly low income countries and resource-poor areas. It engages with staff and students from the University and NHS Tayside to help tackle global health issues.

“Our purpose, as a university, is to transform lives, locally and globally, through the creation, sharing and application of knowledge,” said Professor John Connell, Vice-Principal for Research and Head of the College of Medicine Dentistry and Nursing. “We are very serious about tackling global health issues, so we are indeed delighted when we stand shoulder to shoulder with the UK’s leading universities in important rankings like the University Global Health Research League Table.”

Roddy Isles
Head of Press
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