Call for papers: Global health research and pedagogy workshop

This in-person, one day interdisciplinary research and pedagogy workshop will be held at Queen's University Belfast on Tuesday 17 June 2025. The workshop is planned to coincide with the BISA annual conference that will be running in Belfast 18-20 June 2025. It is organised by the BISA Global Health Working Group, hosted by Dr Christopher Long, and funded and supported by Queen's University Belfast.

• Research: On the morning of the 17th, this workshop will focus on planning the future direction of a special issue themed around the new developments and entanglements in global health security in the areas of science, technology and security. Please see the abstract below.

• Pedagogy: In the afternoon, the discussion will focus on pedagogy with the aim of co-producing a curriculum on global health. The afternoon session is open to everyone, whether you are part of the planned special issue or not. Please see more details below.

  Please join us for one or both parts of the day!

  To apply, please email the Global Health Working Group on ghwg.group@bisa.ac.uk, stating whether you would like to attend for the full day or just the morning or afternoon sessions. If you want to be considered for involvement in the special issue, please send a paper abstract (maximum 200 words) along with your application. You are welcome to attend the research part of the day even if you do not plan to participate in the special issue. The deadline to apply is Friday 31 January 2025.

  There may be some funding available for early-career researchers and teachers (PhD students, post- Docs, and fractionally employed teaching staff) that will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. This will cover travel to the workshop (economy train or flight max £150) and one night’s accommodation (max. £150). Dinner will also be provided to all participants the night of the workshop. If you feel that you are an ECR/ECT and should be eligible for funding but do not fall into any of the above categories, please contact Christopher Long (christopher.long@qub.ac.uk) to discuss.

  Research workshop: Special issue

  This special issue will set out to investigate and answer the following three questions:

1. How have technologies shaped policy decisions in responding to global health threats?
2. How have technologies influenced global health security practices?
3. How have entanglements and new material relations (re)shaped our understandings of global health?

This special issue will bring together researchers working at the intersection of global health and science, technology and security studies to investigate the new political configurations that have arisen in these three areas. Participants are asked to contribute by preparing a 10-minute presentation that includes feedback and comments on the Special Issue abstract and how their research would contribute to it. The abstract is below.

Abstract: Global Health and the Entanglements of Science, Technology and Security

The current outbreaks of COVID-19, Mpox and H5N1 remind us of the ever-present threat that infectious disease represents to the global community. Technology is now playing a complex role in understanding and dealing with these global health threats. This includes the spread of genomics within Africa and the recent development of vaccines for malaria and Ebola that highlight the promise of biotechnology. These outbreaks also highlight the entanglements and new material relations that exist between humans, technologies and ecologies within global health. The links between society and nature, economies and ecologies, somatic and political bodies, human and microbial populations and their various colonies emphasize these embroilments. Technologies, microbes, domestic and livestock animals, built infrastructure and various robots now form some of the new material relations that are (re)shaping international health politics. These relations are upending many conceptual certainties and calling for new approaches to come to terms with the entanglements of humans, technologies and ecologies. These new relations and events inextricably bring together the areas of global health and science, technology and security studies. It also raises the question of how scholars in these areas now reflect on this intersection in light of these new entanglements, materialities and political efforts? This workshop and special issue will examine the new political configurations and intersections that have arisen in these areas and their significance for global health.

Pedagogy workshop: Co-creating a global health politics curriculum

Many BISA Global Health Working Group members will, at some point in their career, be tasked with creating and teaching a global health politics module, or embed global health across the IR curriculum at their institutions. The second half of the workshop in Belfast will aim to pool our collective expertise to co-create a global health politics curriculum and learn from each other’s teaching practice. This will be an opportunity to think creatively and collectively about what we think our students should know about global health and the skills we want to develop.

The session will be interactive and we will aim to produce a global health politics pedagogy ‘starter kit’ that members can use and adapt for their own modules. We are keen to hear from people at all stages of their career as we continue to build a global health politics community both on the research and pedagogy side of things. If you have any questions about the pedagogy workshop, please email us at ghwg.group@bisa.ac.uk.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash