PhD position Global Health Economics

Introduction

Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM) is making substantial investments in Global Health research and teaching, including this PhD opportunity. The school is specifically strengthening its work on health system reform in the Global South. A second PhD opportunity links to our focus on health & nutrition behaviors in low and middle-income country settings.

Job description

More than a billion people annually incur catastrophic health expenditures or forego necessary care, most of them living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Especially in LMICs, ensuring affordable and good quality health care for all is a persistent challenge for health policy that has largely remained unsolved. Most earlier attempts to increase financial protection through the introduction of health insurances across LMICs were less successful than expected. Which policies would be more effective in strengthening the sustainability and resilience of LMICs’ health systems, and increasing financial access at the individual level, is not yet sufficiently known. This PhD project aims to fill some of that gap using multidisciplinary insights from health economics and health systems research.

In countries across the Global North, the design of health systems has been extensively described and evaluated. More specifically, the required tools and preconditions for safeguarding universal health insurance coverage have been developed and tested. This is not yet the case for most of the Global South. In this PhD project you will work on the development of a conceptual framework to describe and evaluate both the sustainability and resilience of health systems countries across the Global South. This framework will be used for assessing the crucial preconditions for achieving universal health coverage considering both the risk of market failures caused by agency problems and the risk of government failure (i.e., the minimum requirements for effective regulation). Subsequently barriers and successes will be identified based on existing empirical work. In parallel, new evidence will be generated on the effectiveness of elements of these health care systems via original data collection or evaluation of one of the more successful health insurance schemes implemented in LMICs (for example Rwanda, Ethiopia or Ghana). There will be ample space for you to inform and direct the PhD project. Throughout the project, you will lead knowledge translation activities to share relevant information on “What works” and “What does not work” with policy makers, NGOs and other relevant stakeholders.

As a PhD student at ESHPM, your primary duty will be to conduct research. In the process, you will be given plenty of opportunity to work on your personal development, e.g., by participating in relevant courses and conferences. In addition, you will be given some teaching duties, which take up on average 15% of your time in a given academic year.

Job requirements

We are looking for someone from or with strong affinity to the Global South who meets the below requirements.

Requirements
 

• MSc in economics, health economics, development economics, public health or any related programme;
• Strong quantitative research skills;
• Excellent communication and writing skills in English;
• A team player who wants to contribute to the interdisciplinary Global Health research agenda of ESHPM;
• Intellectual openness and strong soft skills to effectively work in multicultural teams to tackle important health problems.

Employment conditions and benefits

We offer you an internationally oriented and varied job in an enthusiastic team, with excellent working conditions in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU).

The start date of this position is 01-DEC-2024 and you will be based at [class.26087] in Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM). This position is for 1 fte. The salary ranges from a minimum of € 2.770 to a maximum of € 3.539 gross per month scale PhD on a fulltime basis (38 hours), in accordance with the CAO-NU. The contract is entered into for the duration of 4 years.

Everything else we offer you, you can find below!

-        Everything you need for a good work-life balance: the option to work from home in consultation with your manager, 41 days of paid leave with a 40 hour contract, 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus, and a significant discount on a subscription for our on-campus sports centre!

-        Sustainable, inclusive and diverse work environment with an open culture, where you can be yourself and we pay attention to each other and to the world around us. Make the most of our bicycle budget, or join networks such as Young@EUR, FAME or QuEUR.

-        Time and space for your development in the broadest sense: development days and a personal career budget and free access to our university library.

-        Good pension with ABP that EUR contributes 2/3rds towards, discounts on various collective insurances with Zilveren Kruis Achmea, Loyalis, and Allianz, and compensation for travel, working from home and home internet use.

-        Are you currently combining your job with parenthood, or do you want to do so in the future? EUR offers partially paid parental leave and fully paid additional birth leave for partners, and our campus features a daycare (daycare not paid for by EUR).

-        Moving to the Netherlands for your job with EUR? Then you may be eligible for the 30%-ruling if you meet the requirements of the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax agency), and with our Dual Career Programme we will also help your partner find the right job for them.

Employer

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 4.100 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

Faculty / Institute / Central service

The Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM) is a leading institute based in Rotterdam the Netherlands, specialising in healthcare policy and management across disciplines like economics, law, socio-medical sciences, organisation science, and public administration. ESHPM educates about 1,600 students and employs around 200 faculty members. Strategically, ESHPM is investing in three main themes: Planetary Health, Sustainable Workforce, and Global Health. Through these initiatives, ESHPM is at the forefront of shaping healthcare policy and management, innovating for a sustainable future in healthcare.

Group

The position is part of ESHPM’s new Global Health theme. The theme's purpose is to offer rigorous evidence, impact policies and equitably work with partners and communities around the world to reduce health inequalities. To this end, the new theme aims to connect research groups within ESHPM (such as Health Economics, Health Care Governance, Health Systems & Insurance, Law & Health Care, Health Technology Assessment) and researchers and policy stakeholders around the world to tackle important global health issues of societal relevance. The primary research focus in the coming years is around global health behaviors & field experiments, as well as international health system reform.

The PhD researcher will be embedded within the new Global Health Theme (led by Associate Professors Matthias Rieger and Igna Bonfrer) as well as the Health Economics (HE) department.

Department

The Health Economics department is home to about 40 researchers from various backgrounds and disciplines (economics, psychology, health sciences). Focus areas include global health economics, behavioral and experimental health economics, health equity & financing, long term care and methodology of economic evaluations.

The PhD researcher will also benefit from Erasmus University’s vibrant Rotterdam Global Health Initiative which links ESHPM with Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus Medical Center and the International Institute of Social Studies. 

Additional information

For this PhD position, the selected candidate will have the opportunity to join a committed team led by Dr. Igna Bonfrer and Prof. Marco Varkevisser. Should you require further details regarding this role, please do not hesitate to contact Igna Bonfrer (Bonfrer@eshpm.eur.nl). The interviews are planned for the last week of August. Start date for the position is December, 1, 2024 or earlier.

Applying

Please submit your application, consisting of a motivation letter and CV, before the vacancy closing date: August 16th 2024.

The selection procedure consists of a first round of interviews and potentially a follow-up interview. Interviews are expected to be held in the last week of August.

You can find more information about the EUR on our website www.eur.nl. For more information about this vacancy, please contact Igna Bonfrer via bonfrer@eshpm.eur.nl

We look forward to receiving your application.

Persons of all gender identities or expressions, sexual orientations, religions, ethnicities, ages, neurodiversities, functional impairments, citizenships, or any other aspect are welcome to apply and join the EUR community.