Humanitarian Innovation Fellowship At Royal College of Surgeons of England

The Humanitarian Surgery Initiative (HSI) is an international collaboration led by RCS England which seeks to examine the potential role and contribution of technology and data-driven evidence in building humanitarian surgical capacity, resilience and preparedness in low resource settings.

A central component of this collaboration involves exploring potential platforms and tools that can be used to develop sustainable models for delivering training, mentorship, knowledge exchange, data management and evidence-based policy research. Further information is available on the college website

Innovation Fellowships: The Role

1- The College has already appointed two Humanitarian Surgery Innovation (HSI) Fellows based in the UK and now wishes to appoint two international fellows based in the following World Health Organisation (WHO) regions:

(a) African Region

(b) Eastern Mediterranean Region

2- International HSI Fellows will play an integral role in this collaboration by engaging with stakeholders, supporting and contributing to the substantive development and implementation of various work streams, conducting their own research and sharing their findings as part of the collaboration’s outputs, policy and communications efforts. They will be expected to:

(a) Participate in a range of virtual (and potentially in-person) stakeholder events designed to gather feedback and input from the wider humanitarian and surgical care community.

(b) Spend at least 70% of their time contributing to the delivery of policy research and analysis of the current landscape, implementing pilots, testing ideas and generating recommendations and policy insights. This work will involve close collaboration with the project delivery team, partners, work stream leads and the programme advisory group.

(c) Spend the remaining 30% of their time pursuing their own project and policy research interests within the broad problem space of surgical systems strengthening in humanitarian surgery.

3- Fellowships must start as soon as possible, are for up to one year and may cover salaries, on-costs, some running expenses, access to training (in areas such as research methodology for example) and international travel.

4- Applicants must have the following qualifications and experience:

• A primary medical qualification (PMQ)
• A postgraduate medical qualification (PGMQ) in a surgical specialty
• At least 3 years of full-time clinical practice and/or training (equivalent to ST3 or above in the UK) since obtaining your PMQ, including the most recent 12 months.
• Be living and working in one of the following WHO regions: African Or Eastern Mediterranean
• Knowledge, understanding or experience of working in humanitarian (conflict, crisis, natural disaster, climate change) settings and its challenges.
• Experience of working with humanitarian medical organisations (HMOs) or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in roles related to humanitarian planning, response or recovery, essential emergency surgical, obstetric and anaesthesia care.
• An understanding of humanitarian decision-making, trauma systems and specifically the barriers and obstacles to delivering high-quality essential emergency surgical care, sustainable training models and local capacity development in low resource settings.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships in a multicultural and multidisciplinary environment.
• Experience of, or the ability to learn, research skills in quantitative and qualitative research. (desirable)
• Knowledge and technical experience working with data, low-cost technologies and systems. (desirable)
• A passion and commitment to supporting the ongoing development and implementation of high-quality surgical, obstetric and anaesthesia care in low resource settings, of building research and practice capability using technologies for humanitarian purposes.
• Proven ability, experience or potential to publish in internationally excellent publications.
• Evidence of innovation or creativity in at least one of the following areas:

· Research
· Teaching and training
. Policy

• Must not hold UK citizenship or rights of residence in the UK.

Information Webinars/ Application Workshops

We will be holding two information webinars/ application workshops for those who would like to learn more about these fellowships. The webinars will take place on Tuesday 08 February 2022 at 2pm and at 6:30pm (GMT) and you can register to attend one of these sessions below:

• Humanitarian Surgery Innovation Fellowship: Webinar & Application Workshop (2pm-4pm): Register
• Humanitarian Surgery Innovation Fellowship: Webinar & Application Workshop (6:30pm-8:30pm): Register