The Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting (CHMM) annually convenes government ministers and senior officials to consolidate collective action on global health issues. Crucially, this forum also enables Commonwealth Accredited Organisations to submit policy recommendations to feed into ministerial outcome statements and direct future policy action.
The ACU attends CHMM to raise the visibility of ACU member expertise with governments and key stakeholders and to position universities as vital partners in advancing Commonwealth health commitments. The ACU Health Expert Group has been convened to realise this objective.
Objectives
The inaugural ACU Health Expert Group will focus on health workforce training and development, responding to Commonwealth governments’ calls for stronger collaboration on workforce planning, recruitment, and retention as vital to towards strengthening the overall resilience of national and global health systems.
As educators and trainers of the current and future health workforce, universities play a critical role in tackling these challenges. This group will identify practical activities and initiatives to address health workforce needs and the inequitable impacts of global health worker migration - particularly on small island and lower income countries.
Role
Membership of Expert Groups is open to academic and professional staff working in policy and research relevant roles at ACU member universities. They are time limited and convened to:
- Advise on policy delivery: Provide technical input on ministerial programmes and help shape related outputs like policy briefs and toolkits
- Shape and assess ACU Expert Group grants: Open to all ACU members, the grants will fund university-led projects in thematically aligned areas
- Shape the ACU’s policy work: Input into practical activities, research, and partnerships that support wider policy engagement
- Enable knowledge exchange: Share evidence and good practice to broker collaboration and research ideation across ACU members
- Support coordinated action: Partner with other accredited organisations to align policy, research, and advocacy efforts across the Commonwealth
Benefits
- Drive collaboration: ACU Expert Groups offer new opportunities for ACU members to co-design and deliver policy-relevant initiatives across key policy areas.
- Showcase impact: They also highlight how ACU members - through their teaching, research, programmes and partnerships - are already working with governments and civil society to address pressing policy challenges.
If you are an academic or professional staff at an ACU member university working in the thematic areas above and are keen to learn more about the ACU’s new Expert Groups, please contact us.
Meet the Expert Group
Dr Yang Faridah Abdul Aziz
Professor of Radiology and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia
Dr Maryam Amour
Physician Scientist, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania
Professor Lukoye Atwoli
Professor and Dean, Medical College, Aga Khan University, Kenya
Professor Irene Blackberry
John Richards Chair, La Trobe University, Australia
Gwen Burrows
Assistant Vice-President, International Engagement & Impact, University of Toronto, Canada
Professor Vajira H W Dissanayake
Dean of Faculty and Chair and Senior Professor of Anatomy, Genetics, and Biomedical Informatics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Beth Kreling
Commonwealth Consortium for Education (CCfE)
Professor Alistair Mathie
Professor of Pharmacology and Head of Life Sciences, University of Westminster, UK
Professor Patrick McNeil
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Medicine and Health, Macquarie University, Australia
Dr Tinyiko Nelly Ngobeni-Rikhotso
Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Advanced Nursing Science, University of Venda, South Africa
Dr Cherian Varghese
Professor of Global Public Health Governance and Policy and Director of the Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India
Dr Leslie Walwyn
Professor of Clinical Medicine and Associate Dean of Global Health, American University of Antigua College of Medicine, Antigua and Barbuda
