The programme is organized by a consortium of Four Schools:

The programme was created based on the Schools’ longstanding previous experience of training public health professionals, in Portugal and abroad, and provides all the essential conditions needed for such training.

The NOVA National School of Public Health has 2 other PhD programmes, one in Public Health and one in Dynamics of Health and Welfare (DHW). Currently, there are nearly 70 PhD students at ENSP. The DHW Doctoral Programme was approved in 2012 and funded by the European Union, as an Erasmus Mundus Doctorate. The participant members from ENSP have a vast experience in research and supervision activities, that can be assessed through the number of publications (more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed international journals), more than 100 master’s theses and 29 PhD dissertations. Since 2009 ENSP researchers developed 70 new projects (4 international and 20 national with competitive funding).

The University of Porto through the Epidemiological R&D Unit from the Institute of Public Health (ISPUP) have a multidisciplinary team, with large experience in national and international research projects in the field of public health and epidemiology, which combines 80 PhD Integrated researchers, 140 fellows and Master’s students and 50 PhD students, particularly from the PhD programme in Public Health started in 2007-08. Since 2012, EPIUnit has hosted more than 50 national and 15 international projects with competitive funding. Integrated members author on average 250 full-text scientific publications per year, placing ISPUP among the most productive and competitive Portuguese institutions in health research. Several formal collaborations with European, South American and African partners ensure a global and dynamic exchange of knowledge and competences.

The NOVA Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine team has 4 senior researchers, 2 junior researchers and 1 young scientist in the area of Global Public Health. The senior team has a large experience in advanced training (both teaching and supervising), with a total number of 16 PhD theses completed in the last five years. As a whole, in the same period, the team published more than 125 papers indexed in the web of science. IHMT is a WHO Collaborating Centre in Health Workforce Policy and Planning.

The NOVA Medical School has two other doctoral programmes, Medicine and Life Sciences and participates in the PhD Course on Aging and Degeneration of Complex Biological Systems. The Research Centre for the Study of Chronic diseases, CEDOC, integrates several levels of approach to the subject and is the main research strategic goal of FCM. Since 2007, FCM graduated 49 PhD students. The Public Health Department of FCM, with 8 PhD level staff, has a consolidated capacity for training and research, in the core areas of Public Health and in specific areas.

Global Public Health is supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, FCT).