Professor Nikolas Rose spoke about the impact of addressing social justice and inequality in today’s rapidly changing global world at the recent launch for GHSM’s 10th anniversary exhibition.
At the recent exhibition launch, Professor Nikolas Rose spoke about the need for a department with an interdisciplinary and collaborative ethos in order to address structural inequality and structural violence.
Having founded the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine in 2012 with this ethos, he commended the department for its ability, a decade on, to work with partners on the ground to improve human happiness and human lives.
He also commended the department for its ability to work within and between societies, notably between the Global North and the Global South.
There has been a lot of emphasis in global health on high tech inventions from the Global North, but we [as a department] think it’s really important to work out and understand with partners on the ground how these things are actually developing, how they are experienced by people in local communities.
Prfofessor Nikolas Rose, founder of the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine
“Because, after all, global health may sound like a global issue, but actually it’s experienced in very different and specific local environments."
He also spoke about the need to continue the interdisciplinary and collaborative culture as the world continues to be faced with injustice and inequality.
"I hope the interdisciplinary and collaborative culture will continue to grow as the department confronts the intellectual challenges in a world which is still sadly riven by injustice and inequality, not least in the very basics of mobility, of illness and of mortality rates of death that we see written into the fabric of so many societies."
In addition to partnerships, the department is committed to addressing social justice and inequality by studying both the life sciences and the social sciences.
Professor Rose gave thanks to the undergraduates studying with the department in the early years.
One of the great things about the early years of the department, when we were all a bit unsure as to how it was going to go, were the terrific undergraduates we got, who were very, very keen and able to take on the challenge of learning both the life sciences and the social sciences.
Prfofessor Nikolas Rose, founder of the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine
The anniversary exhibition, titled Power, Partnerships, Potential: GHSM on from 10 showcases the department's research, addressing today’s global health challenges, and how the department’s partners are helping students and researchers to make sustainable impacts in a decolonising world.
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