The University of Melbourne has partnered with Emory University in the Emory Morningside Global Health Case Competition. For over eight years, Melbourne’s team has won prestigious competitions and placed three times.
Over the past five years, the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences has been working with the Emory Global Health Institute to establish a parallel Indo-Pacific Global Health Case Competition. The competition, inaugurated in 2023, provides a unique opportunity for students in the region to work together on innovative, multidisciplinary solutions to crucial, real-world global health problems.
Developing new networks for regional collaboration and knowledge sharing
The Indo-Pacific Global Health Case Competition consists of 20 teams and 120 students from six countries across the Indo-Pacific region. After attending workshops on global health and leadership facilitated by the University of Melbourne and sponsored by Nous Consulting, the participating teams were given two weeks to develop their response to the 2023 case on child health and nutrition in Kiribati.
The team presentations, delivered either in person at the University of Melbourne or online, provided a range of innovative interdisciplinary responses that included economic, cultural and geographical complexities.
Providing real-life solutions to identified health problems
The judges were from the Australian Government, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), leading global health institutes, and global health professionals from the region. Tearinaki Tanielu, advisor to the Kiribati Permanent Representative to the United Nations, outlined how the solutions presented were viable and provided a genuine contribution to Kiribati’s aspiration towards better health outcomes.