Imperial College London is delighted to partner with Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) for the 4^th bilateral Global Fellows Programme, taking place from 09-13 September 2024. The in-person programme will take place in London, hosted by Imperial College London.   

In the current scientific environment international and interdisciplinary collaborations and networking are fundamental to developing successful projects. In a competitive research environment funding bodies increasingly look for interdisciplinary, collaborative research with partners from around the world. The modern researcher requires both excellence in research and strong professional collaborative competencies.  

Over the course of one week approximately 30 doctoral researchers from Tokyo Tech and Imperial will develop collaborative interdisciplinary competencies and intercultural awareness required to establish and continue successful collaborations.  

During this 5-day programme, participants will work in interdisciplinary and intercultural groups, assisted by a coach from one of the partner universities. Participants will enhance: 

• Their ability to work collaboratively on research ideas
• Their ability to network and communicate effectively with impact in interdisciplinary and intercultural teams
• Their intercultural and international competency and awareness
• Their creativity to develop collaborative research ideas
• Their appreciation of research in international institutions

Participants will also have the opportunity to apply those skills and competencies to address topics under the programme theme “Good health and wellbeing”.

Sustainable Development Goal 3 “Good health and wellbeing’ aims to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all, at all ages. There is a global inequality of access to good health and wellbeing, with notable differences observed by age, gender and location. The recent UN report on progress towards the 2030 targets has re-emphasised that more work is required as some targets have stalled.

Promoting healthy lifestyles and the provision of preventative measures for health and wellbeing issues is critical for all societies. Responding to new health risks requires early warning, risk reduction and incident management at both a national and international level. Challenges remain to provide increased health care access and access to affordable essential medicines and vaccines.

Further measures are required to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates and to reduce the incidence of and mortality rates resulting from epidemics and tropical diseases and to combat water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases.

Other areas of concern include actions to promote mental health and well-being, to reduce illness and deaths from hazardous chemicals, air, water and soil pollution and contamination, and the reduction of mortalities from traffic accidents.

Health care access will also require increased health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce.

During the program, participants will engage in intercultural, interdisciplinary and cross-sector discussions and develop their own creative approaches to achieving good health and wellbeing.

Guest speakers from Imperial and Tokyo Tech will provide participants with insight into current research related to the programme theme.

A background on the subject is not essential, doctoral candidates from any discipline are invited to apply for this 5-day Global fellows Programme.

Student Experiences from last year’s Imperial-Tokyo Tech GFP: 

‘For me the GFP was an outstanding, and probably one of a kind opportunity, that helped me improving my personal, communicative, and collaborative skills.’

‘A fantastic and intensely beautiful course that will open your mind to so many new things’

‘It was an amazing experience I am inspired to work on other collaborative projects’

‘Being a Global Fellow is a wonderful experience, not only on the specific topic, but the development as a researcher as a whole.’

You can read student experiences of previous Global Fellows Programmes on this webpage.  

Any additional queries not answered in webpages, please contact Laura Bulmer & Beth Yates