PhD Position: Pandemic Preparedness and Building Resilient Healthcare Systems (PARAATHEID)

PhD Position: Pandemic Preparedness and Building Resilient Healthcare Systems (PARAATHEID)

Are you passionate about global health, transdisciplinary research, and making health systems more resilient? Apply now for a fully funded 4-year PhD in the PARAATHEID project!

Job description

About the Project

The COVID-19 pandemic taught us the importance of a resilient healthcare system that can prevent, detect, respond to, and adapt to infectious disease outbreaks. The pandemic also highlighted inequalities across health systems in different countries. Understanding local contexts is, therefore, essential to understanding and strengthening health system resilience.

The PARAATHEID research project aims at protecting public health by co-creating an evidence-informed roadmap for a resilient healthcare system in Indonesia. This roadmap is grounded in the shared experiences, challenges, and differences between Indonesia and the Netherlands. In this bilateral context, all empirical work will take place in Indonesia, while expertise from both countries will be used to analyse the data and collaboratively develop the roadmap. In doing so, the project promotes mutual learning with the aim of strengthening health system preparedness in an increasingly globalized world.

This four-year PhD project is conducted in close partnership with leading institutions in Indonesia (Institute Technology of Bandung, University of Indonesia, Perkumpulan Inisiatif) and the Netherlands (Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University Rotterdam). Our consortium builds on members’ extensive expertise in health systems, resilience, public health, and governance to advance new insights into how health system resilience indicators can be operationalised. The project aims to support more integrated planning and response mechanisms to strengthen pandemic preparedness and improve responses to future outbreaks.

About the PhD Position

As a PhD candidate, you will work closely with the project’s international research team and contribute to important project deliverables in three main areas:

1. Healthcare system preparedness framework: you will develop a framework that combines quantitative and qualitative data to assess Health System Preparedness across different contexts. You will conduct this analysis with reference to the WHO Health Systems Performance Assessment Framework and academic and grey literature on health systems resilience.
2. Empirical assessment of health care preparedness: you will use the framework to conduct a multi-method empirical study to assess healthcare system preparedness in terms of critical health resources (e.g. surge capacity, availability and qualification/skills of healthcare personnel and availability of protective equipment), health infrastructure requirements (e.g., capacity, availability and accessibility of health providers), and vulnerabilities (e.g., socio-demographics, access to WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) infrastructure). This will allow us to identify preparedness hotspots and vulnerabilities. A combination of quantitative (e.g., spatial data analytics) and qualitative methods (e.g., surveys and/or interviews) will be required for the empirical work.
3. Health system resilience roadmap: Working with the wider project consortium, you will engage in participatory methods with healthcare actors in Indonesia with the goal of designing of a roadmap and action plan for a resilient healthcare system. We will build on the analyses in Step 2 to contribute to the design of a context-sensitive healthcare resilience plan: identifying where resilience is currently achieved, where vulnerabilities lie, and how systems might be adapted to future shocks. This activity will build not only on the work conducted in this PhD project, but bring together the other work packages across the PARAATHEID project.

Throughout your PhD, you will collaborate with team members across disciplines, including experts in healthcare governance, to help develop integrated, context-aware approaches to health system resilience. As part of the program, you will also spend a period of time conducting research abroad (with associated costs covered by the project’s research funding).

Job requirements

• A highly motivated and enthusiastic researcher with a passion for conducting interdisciplinary research to improve pandemic preparedness in a global health context.
• An MSc Degree in Global Health, Health Management, Health Policy, or related disciplines such as Policy Analysis with applications in health domains.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to engage with complex, multifaceted research questions.
• Experience in spatial data analytics.
• Combined experience or a keen interest in qualitative research methods (interviews, delphi) and/or survey methodologies.
• A creative mindset with independent and original thinking.
• A collaborative spirit, performing well in a transdisciplinary environment, engaging with researchers and experts from diverse domains.
• Excellent academic performance and strong academic writing skills.
• Excellent command of spoken and written English and good communication skills.
• An understanding of the Indonesian language and knowledge of Indonesia’s healthcare context is an asset.

TU Delft

Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Technology, Policy and Management

The Faculty of TPM provides an important contribution to solving complex technical-social issues, such as energy transition, mobility, digitalisation, water management and (cyber) security. TPM does this with its excellent education and research at the intersection of technology, society and policy. We combine insights from both engineering and social sciences as well as the humanities. TPM develops robust models and designs, is internationally oriented and has an extensive network of knowledge institutions, companies, social organisations and governments.

Conditions of employment

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1.5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months. Followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2.5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, increasing from € 2872 per month in the first year to € 3670 in the fourth year. As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills.

The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

Will you need to relocate to the Netherlands for this job? TU Delft is committed to make your move as smooth as possible! The HR unit, Coming to Delft Service, offers information on their website to help you prepare your relocation. In addition, Coming to Delft Service organises events to help you settle in the Netherlands, and expand your (social) network in Delft. A Dual Career Programme is available, to support your accompanying partner with their job search in the Netherlands.

Additional information

For questions about the position or project, please contact the PhD supervisory team: Dr. ir. Zenlin Roosenboom-Kwee (Z.Roosenboom-Kwee@tudelft.nl), Dr. Saba Hinrichs-Krapels (S.Hinrichs@tudelft.nl) and Prof. dr. Tina Comes (T.Comes@tudelft.nl)

You will be personally supervised by this team, who will ensure your strong integration within the faculty and provide access to the full range of expertise needed throughout your PhD journey.