About the course

This course takes an interdisciplinary and applied approach to the challenges of implementing innovations and research discoveries in a health care setting.

Utilising innovations to meet healthcare needs is a global imperative – and one that can only become more urgent as demands on our health care systems increase. This applied MSc course brings robust, interdisciplinary and practice-based approaches to addressing the challenges of research translation.

The key focus will be theory and method in the ‘downstream’ phases of translational health sciences – that is, the human, organisational and societal issues that influence the adoption, dissemination and mainstreaming of research discoveries. You can expect to gain a coherent overview of how different academic disciplines can inform problem-solving and guide action in translational health sciences, along with a rigorous interdisciplinary training to further develop your intellectual and research skills.

The course is ideal for researchers who want to study scientific and technological innovation in a healthcare setting and research managers looking to run clinical trials or promote the uptake of research findings. It will also assist entrepreneurs (from industry or the public sector) who seek to improve patient care through innovation and policymakers (local and national) wishing to support research and its translation to improve services. For students interested in undertaking doctoral research, the MSc will prepare them to apply for a DPhil in translational health sciences. The department expects all students to have some relevant past experience in a work environment.

The MSc Translational Health Science can be studied full-time or part-time. Students complete one compulsory module (Introduction and Research Methods for Translational Science), plus five option modules and a dissertation.