What can you study at IGS?
IGS offers three master's programmes, contributes to several professional programmes, and offers doctoral training in cooperation with the Faculty of Medicine.
Master's in Global Health
A two-year programme taught in English. You study health in low- and middle-income countries, health systems, infectious disease and global inequality, and complete an empirical master's thesis affiliated with the Centre for International Health (CIH).
Master's in Health and Society
A two-year interdisciplinary programme (taught in Norwegian). You work with public health, health services research, epidemiology and social pharmacy, and can specialise within your own field.
Clinical Master's in Manual Therapy (MFMT)
For licensed physiotherapists (taught in Norwegian). The programme is clinically anchored and qualifies for primary contact and referral rights.
Teaching in medicine, dentistry and nutrition
IGS teaches general practice, community medicine, occupational medicine, ethics and statistics throughout the medical programme, including the decentralised Vestlandslegen model with parts of the study taking place at hospitals in Stavanger, Haugesund and Førde.
Doctoral training (PhD)
The PhD programme is run by the Faculty of Medicine. IGS hosts its own research schools and the core facility BIOS for biostatistics and data analysis.
The academic environment and learning site
IGS is located in the Alrek Health Cluster (external link) — a partnership between the University of Bergen, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, the City of Bergen, Helse Bergen and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. You study side by side with general practitioners, municipal health services and other health professions.
The academic environment is broad and covers physiotherapy, genetic counselling, epidemiology, community medicine, statistics, nursing, social pharmacy, ethics and general practice. BCEPS — Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting in Health is a Norwegian Centre of Excellence based at the department.
Centres and core facilities you can connect to
- Centre for International Health (CIH) — research and teaching in global health
- Centre for Elderly and Nursing Home Medicine (SEFAS)
- Centre for Interprofessional Collaborative Learning (TVEPS) — practise interprofessional teamwork with students from medicine, pharmacy, nutrition, nursing, physiotherapy, dental hygiene and occupational therapy
- The Pandemic Centre
- CISMAC — research on maternal and child health interventions
- TRACE — Centre for Translational Epidemiology
- PraksisNett — the GP research network for general practice (Norwegian website)
- BIOS — core facility for biostatistics and data analysis (Norwegian website)
Vestlandslegen and decentralised teaching
IGS contributes substantially to Vestlandslegen — the decentralised medical programme where parts of the studies take place at hospitals in Stavanger, Haugesund and Førde. If you are interested in general practice or community medicine, you can follow courses anchored in clinical practice outside Bergen.