Working toward Critical Global Health at UCL - a retrospective

As the Grand Challenge of Global Health concludes, the Critical Global Health Initiative offers a retrospective account of their work to facilitate critical interdisciplinary health research at UCL.

Since early 2022, members of the Critical Global Health initiative - a part of the Grand Challenge of Global Health - have been working to map, connect and amplify scholars working critically on health across the full breadth of disciplines at UCL. Our goals were twofold: first, to raise awareness of UCL’s existing strengths in this emerging and increasingly important field; second, to further promote interdisciplinary collaboration and solidify a critical network of health scholars, with a view to supporting future initiatives in this area.  

For readers now wondering “what is critical global health?”: our initial virtual roundtable (“What is Critical Global Health?”) set out to answer exactly this question. Our subsequent podcast series with UCL scholars then explored specific aspects of critical health research in more depth - including the challenges of interdisciplinary work, critical teaching, ethical partnerships, community-driven research and intersections between health and the arts. While the answer is far from settled, our discussions have coalesced variously around a concern with the relationship between health and broader inequalities (geographical/geopolitical, economic, gendered, classed …) and historical and political processes at a variety of scales. 

In the process of organising these conversations, we were amazed by the sheer volume of critical health scholarship being undertaken at UCL. We also realised both the difficulty and necessity of mapping and promoting the work of early career scholars in this field. At UCL and beyond, much of the most exciting, innovative and vital scholarship on critical global health is produced by early career and postgraduate researchers. Yet these junior scholars may not have established roles, web presence or access to the same opportunities for dissemination as more senior scholars. 

For all scholars, meanwhile, the intrinsically interdisciplinary nature of critical global health can be a double-edged sword: though the field as a whole is burgeoning, its distributed nature means that individual scholars may find that the form of work they are undertaking occupies a marginal position within their formal discipline(s) and department(s). 

In early 2023, therefore, we decided to prioritise bringing early-career and postgraduate scholars from across UCL together - in person and online - for a hybrid interdisciplinary symposium. Event funding from the Institute for Advanced Studies’ Octagon Fund, Grand Challenges and Social and Historical Sciences allowed us to secure two prestigious keynote speakers: Drs Chisomo Kalinga (Edinburgh) and Jean Segata (Rio Grande do Sul), and we were joined by early-career presenters from an array of disciplines. A retrospective of this symposium will soon be shared on the SHS Health, Mind and Society news page. 

We are proud to note that all of our initiatives have prioritised equity. Our events and podcasts have featured a diverse group of scholars at all career stages and from various disciplines, and both of our events were open to all. In addition, we considered how to make our events more inclusive of disabled scholars and those with health conditions. Our symposium was hybrid to facilitate online attendance, and we took simple, practical steps for covid safety: we provided high-quality masks to attendees, provided clear guidance that registrants should not attend in-person if unwell, ensured good ventilation throughout, and held our catered lunch and reception outside in the sunny Quad. 

As the Grand Challenge of Global Health draws to a close, we seek to ensure that critical global health at UCL continues to go from strength to strength. We look forward to the opportunities presented by the new Grand Challenges outlined in the UCL Strategic Plan, within which health will be a cross-cutting concern. In particular, we are excited by the opportunities presented by this year’s two new Grand Challenges of Climate Crisis and Mental Health and Wellbeing.  We see clear points of connection between these themes and Critical Global Health concerns.  

As our final initiative, we are supporting the creation of a pan-UCL interdisciplinary Early Career Network for Critical Global Health. We encourage early career and postgraduate scholars to apply to this Call for Proposals (deadline September 15 2023), and all other scholars to circulate within their networks. 

The Critical Global Health Working Group has been comprised of Prof Sahra Gibbon (Anthropology), Prof Megan Vaughan (Institute of Advanced Studies), Dr Jennie Gamlin (Institute for Global Health) and Catriona Gold (Geography), supported by Dr James Paskins and previously Nina Quach (both Grand Challenges).  

Written by Catriona Gold,  Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences (Geography).