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MSc in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation

The MSc in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation (HSIE) is a full-time face-to-face course across one year of study. This unique MSc is led by the Health Systems Collaborative research group in collaboration with the Nuffield Department of Medicine’s Centre for Global Health Research at Oxford. This MSc is distinct from other global health or public health courses, providing you with theory alongside practical skills to implement health service improvement and evaluation in today’s complex healthcare and service environments.

Oxford skyline at sunset

MSc in Health Service Improvement and Evaluation

MSc HSIE is led by the Health Systems Collaborative research group in collaboration with the NDM Centre for Global Health Research.

Employability is at the heart of the HSIE MSc

Health systems strengthening is a growing priority for both high-income and lower-resource settings. This has led to increased demand for professionals with technical expertise in health systems improvement and programme evaluation.

Our students are trained to meet this demand. You will learn to diagnose system problems, assess the quality of interventions, implement improvements to increase uptake and sustainability and understand the value of different disciplinary approaches to evaluation. We also provide training in skills that make candidates stand out: leadership and effective teamworking, academic and technical writing and public presentation. The skills and practical experience you will gain in this MSc will enable you to excel in sectors ranging from ministries of health, policymaking, academic, multi-lateral, bilateral and non-governmental organisations.

Course Intended Learning Outcomes

As an HSIE MSc graduate, you will be able to:

  • Identify and analyse health system challenges and areas for improvement
  • Apply strategies to design interventions addressing different health service challenges
  • Design plans for the evaluation of interventions in health services 
  • Create a health service improvement and evaluation project plan 
  • Communicate plans and outputs clearly through oral and written communication, both individually and in teams.

What to expect

This course is intensive and immersive, pairing lectures with active learning to reinforce your knowledge and skills. Sessions are delivered by experts with rich experience across a variety of contexts. A combination of lectures, small class discussions and teamwork projects will allow you to apply knowledge to practice from the start of the course.

While the course is intensive, there is plenty of support: you will be assigned an academic advisor to provide support throughout the course, as well as a tutor to support team projects and a thesis supervisor to support your dissertation. We also offer a workshop on how to write a funding proposal; a retreat to improve your academic writing; and a student conference to gain experience in communicating your work.

Are you interested?

Let us know by emailing hsclearning@ndm.ox.ac.uk. We will send you the link to apply when it becomes available.

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