Fogarty MSc in Global Health Ethics

Developments in neuroscience, AI and genomics have altered the global health ethics agenda, requiring us to critically reconsider the theories, methods, and approaches we bring to our scholarship and educational practices. As such, our new MSc in Global Health Ethics, funded by the NIH Fogarty International Center, aims to sensitise students to the historical, social, and political factors that influence the shape and organisation of global health research and practice.
By putting Africa at the centre of our approach, and partnering with a diverse team of experts in global health – academics across and beyond UCT, we have developed an innovative curriculum that brings together the frontiers of scientific and technological innovation and knowledge from the African humanities.

Engagement and impact

The aim is to train students to critically engage with new technologies, their impact on health research in Africa and the ethical challenges that they raise. We also seek to build a cohort of graduates who can go on to be bioethics leaders in a variety of institutions; with the support of Fogarty, several full and partial scholarships are available to suitable candidates, i.e. students whose interests and abilities intersect with those of the programme.

The MSc in Global Health Ethics launched in February 2026 in the UCT Faculty of Health Sciences. It is a two-year, postgraduate programme on NQF level 9 and can accommodate an intake of 15 students per academic year. Applications for 2027 will open in April 2026. Please email heidi.matisonn@uct.ac.za for more details.

The development and implementation of this MSc degree is supported by a grant from the Fogarty International Centre of the National Institutes of Health under award number R25TW012219.