Virtual Visitor Program

The Health Economic Unit (HEU) has established a Virtual Visitor Program to enable PhD students and early career researchers from low and middle-income countries (LMIC) to be selected to participate online for free in our selective academic activities.

During the period of engagement, the virtual visitors can:

  • attend workshops, seminars and online short courses delivered by the Health Economics Unit;
  • meet the team and identify opportunities for mentoring and collaborations;
  • present their work and receive feedback in our Work-in-Progress Seminar series; and
  • receive guidance to apply for competitive PhD or ECR Scholarships at the University of Melbourne.

This program is designed for virtual visitors from different geographic regions, starting with Asia for a 6-month period in 2023.

To be eligible for this round of the program, virtual visitors will need to:

  • be an academic staff member with experience in doing health economic research at a university or not-for-profit research institute in a LMIC (defined by World Bank) in Asia;
  • have a Master-level qualification or higher in Economics, Health Economics, Public Health, or Health Services Research;
  • have access to an internet connection that supports video meetings; and
  • have demonstrated fluency in English (e.g., IELTS test score 6.5+; paper-based TOEFL test score 577+; internet-based TOEFL test score 79+; Pearson Test of English Academic score 58+; Cambridge English C1 Advanced test score 176+; or having completed at least 2 years of a full-time Master program where 100% of classes were English).

To apply for this program, the candidates should provide:

  • a cover letter (max one page) describing the motivation to be a virtual visitor and vision for future collaboration with the HEU;
  • a curriculum vitae (CV; max 2 pages); and
  • an example of a research output related to health economics such as an academic paper, a report or a thesis chapter that they have produced.

Please send all documents in a single PDF file to health-economics@unimelb.edu.au by 28 February 2023 with the subject line “Virtual Visitor Program Application”. Please name your file in the following pattern: [First name]_[Surname]_Application. Applicants whose research output or interest align well with the research areas of the HEU will be given priority (see here for research at the HEU).

While specific activities will be informed during the engagement period, we have fixed the following events:

  • Online workshop “Using R for health economic evaluation: An introduction”, provided in April 2023 by Dr An Duy Tran at the HEU.
  • Webinar “Methods for analysing healthcare resource use and costs, provided in July 2023 by Dr Li Huang at the HEU.

For more information or inquiries, please contact the Program Lead, Dr An Duy Tran, at an.tran@unimelb.edu.au