As a respond to the global crisis situation caused by the Covid- 19, significant changes have been made in the activities plan of “Doctoral Programs in Public Health and Social Sciences” project. The changes were mainly related to the milestones and dates of their achievement. Despite to that, the partner universities continued their activities directed towards realization of the main goals and objectives of the project. Particularly, during the last months the new PhD course structure had been developed and included in educational programs of partner universities.
The other objective of the project was capacity building of partner universities that had been planned to achieve mainly through the trainings, conferences and experience sharing. For carrying out that objective, two-day training was organized in the frames of the project. The training was hosted by the project consortium member – Slovak Medical University (SMU).
The main subject of the trainings were public health and research integrity, especially social and health factors combined influence on the well-being of population and of different social groups.
The trainings started with the opening session during which the dean and staff members of the faculty of Public Health welcomed the participants of the trainings and announced the trainings’ sessions open.
The main topics of the trainings were related to theoretical and methodological aspects of public health and social sciences, ethics in science and medicine, as well as to the results of the researches that Slovak partners had implemented in the public health and social work spheres.
The presentations of the trainers were aligned with the discussions and questions-answers active sessions.
The trainings were attended not only by the project’s consortium members and presenters of partner universities, but also by the SMU staff members and students.
Discussion on the newly developed PhD course structures
During the conference partner universities presented to the consortium members and other participants of the trainings the PhD course structures they had developed within the project. Particularly, Yerevan State Medical University, Yerevan State University, Tbilisi State University and University of Georgia shared the information on the PhD course structures (PhD course structures) in Public Health and Social Work and received the feedback of their partners. As a result of the discussion, the PhD courses had been approved by the consortium.
Management meeting and its results
The management meeting was held during the last day of the visit to SMU. During the meeting the consortium members presented their activities implemented during the reporting period and discussed further initiations taking into account the fact that the duration of the project had been prolonged for a one year. The extension of the project was reasoned by the pandemic situation and its negative influence on the active realization of the project’s objectives.
The main topics discussed during the management meeting were related to the project’s budget and financial issues, PhD students’ internship in partner universities, and final conference that would be held in Yerevan State Medical University.
According to the results of the management meeting and based on the projects activities plan, it was decided that during the upcoming 3 months 4 PhD students from each partner university would take internship in the project consortium universities.. Hence, two students from partner universities that present public health part would continue their study in the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), and two as the representatives of social work direction would take their internship in the University of Applied Sciences in Upper Austria. The trainings would be mainly connected correspondently to the biostatistics and social sciences (social work and sociology) researches.
It was also decided that the final conference would be held on the September of the ongoing year and that the materials and reports presented at the conference will be published in the digest devoted to the “PhD program in Public Health and Social Sciences”. The announcement of the conference here.