The PhD in Global Human Development is part of the Human Development Initiative (HDI). HDI aims to promote and foster development education, produce quality research in partnership with southern universities and raise awareness of contemporary development issues through various outreach programmes. It is comprised of an inter disciplinary group of academics, researchers and students whose work focuses on contemporary development issues.
The PhD in Global Human Development is a 3-4 year full time ‘sandwich’ programme jointly offered by UCD and one of a number of other universities in Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe and China. (University of Dar Es Salaam, University of Malawi, University of Zimbabwe and Xiamen University), or any other university in a ‘developing country’ willing to accept students for their obligatory research stay. The programme has been developed for government personnel and public servants (such as Higher Education academics, research institutes) mainly in East Africa
PhD students on the programme are required to spend at least one semester per academic year at UCD. Consequently the following semester has to be spent at their research university under the supervision of the student’s ‘local’ supervisor.