Working to Advance
Health Equity in Africa

Professor Jim Whitman

  • Professorial fellow and Co-director of HEARD's PhD Scholarship Programme
  • Global health

Prof Jim Whitman, a former Professor of Global Governance in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, UK, joins HEARD to serve as Visiting Professor for the next two years. He will be assisting with the establishment of the HEARD PhD Scholarship Programme and teaching, with a view to helping students refine their research questions and develop their Year 1 Concept Papers.

He regards HEARD as ‘uniquely placed to establish a critical mass of scholars for the advancement of work on the social, political and economic drivers of HIV infection and on the obstacles they present to dealing with the consequences of AIDS, for individuals, communities and the nations of the southern African region. I also look forward to working with HEARD doctoral candidates and colleagues on broader issues of global health.’

During his tenure with HEARD, Jim will also be conducting individual and collaborative research on HIV prevention and on the political, ethical and resource challenges of global health.

Until November 2013 Professor of Global Governance in the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK, where he served as Director of both its MA and PhD programmes. Formerly, he was a member of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge, where his duties included the post of Secretary of Graduate Admissions and Progress.

His wide-ranging intellectual interests include having co-founded one of the very first electronic journals (The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance) which he edited for eleven years; establishing and acting as general editor of a book series for Palgrave (Global Issues) which currently has more than 40 volumes in print; and publishing on issues including humanitarian intervention, bioethics and the political aspects of emerging and resurgent infectious diseases. He is currently an external examiner for degrees at the Universities of Durham, Cambridge and Trinity College, Dublin and a course examiner for the Open University.

Jim’s most recent books are The Fundamentals of Global Governance (Palgrave 2009); (ed) Global Governance (Palgrave Advances 2010); and (edited with Sarah Perrigo), The Geneva Conventions Under Assault (Pluto, 2010). A co-edited special edition of Third World Quarterly (with Nana Poku) on the Millennium Development Goals has been published under the title, The Millennium Development Goals: Challenges, Prospects and Opportunities (Routledge, 2013) and a monograph for Palgrave, Governance Challenges of Nanotechnology has been contracted and is in preparation.