Doctor of Philosophy in Health Data Science
Doctoral research at the intersection of medicine, biology and computation, anchored in African clinical and population data. The programme requires peer reviewed publication before submission, a translation statement, and evidence that the...
Employment thesis
What this programme is designed to produce
Forward publishes the destination of every programme before you enrol. If the thesis stops holding, the programme is reviewed and, where necessary, retired. Next review: 2031.
Roles
- University academic
- principal investigator
- clinical research lead
- national health data or genomics leader
- scientific founder.
Employer types
- Universities and research institutes
- ministries and public health institutes
- hospitals with research functions
- global health funders
- and health technology ventures.
Target outcomes we hold ourselves to
- Designed to build African clinical research leadership and supervision capacity.
Compulsory · The Forward Core
How the Core works →Every Forward programme, including this one, carries the same five cross-cutting requirements. They are graded, not optional.
- AI Fluency
- Quantitative Reasoning
- Ethics and African Context
- Human-Advantage Skills
- Enterprise
Includes 12 months paid work-integrated learning
Am I eligible?
Check yourself against the published requirements
7 questions written specifically for Doctor of Philosophy in Health Data Science. Every answer is checked against a requirement Forward has published, and the result tells you which page that requirement comes from. Indicative only, the admissions office decides on your full file.
What is the highest qualification you hold?
Curriculum structure
The same degree, in both pathways
Every Forward programme is published in both pathways: Path One, the term plan of two six-month terms, and Path Two, the block sequence of twelve four-week blocks. Same competencies, same assessments, same award. Toggle to see this programme in each.
Path One term plan shown
Path One · The Term Model
| Code | Course | CU | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| HLB 110 | Doctoral Research Methods and Advanced Study Design Both | 8 | 6-2-2 |
| HLB 111 | Advanced Topics in Health Data Science Objective | 8 | 7-2-0 |
| HLB 112 | Research Ethics, Governance and Community Engagement Objective | 4 | 3-2-0 |
| HLB 113 | Academic Writing and Peer Review Objective | 4 | 3-2-0 |
| Code | Course | CU | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| HLB 130 | Specialist Reading and Literature Synthesis Objective | 8 | 7-2-0 |
| HLB 131 | Teaching Practice and Supervision Apprenticeship Performance | 6 | 1-0-10 |
| HLB 132 | Translation to Practice, Policy and Regulation Objective | 6 | 5-2-0 |
| HLB 133 | Thesis Proposal and Public Defence Performance | 16 | 0-2-30 |
| Code | Course | CU | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| HLB 610 | Doctoral Thesis Research and Supervision (continuous registration) Performance | 0 | 0-0-0 |
| HLB 611 | Doctoral Colloquium and Publication Performanc | 0 | 0-0-0 |
Total credit units: 60
Curriculum source
Forward University Curriculum Compendium
Assessment
Coursework + project + integrated exam
Work-integrated learning
12 months paid co-operative education
Your week at Forward
A typical week on Doctor of Philosophy in Health Data Science
Path One, the Term Model: your own pace across a six-month term, one live session a week, short flexible lessons, and assessment on demand.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Curriculum explorer
Drill into the degree, step by step
Choose a study path, then a year, then a term or block, then a course. Credit totals add up as you go, and every course shows what comes before it and what it unlocks.
Step 1, choose a year
Step 2, choose a term
YEAR 1, SEMESTER 1: DOCTORAL COURSEWORK
Year 1 · this step is worth 24 CU
Cumulative
24
Programme total
60
24 CU of 60 CU completed by the end of this step (40%)
Step 3, choose a course
Pick a course to see the detail
Credits, assessment, prerequisites and what each course unlocks later.
The twelve Forward capabilities
What this programme develops in you
Every Forward degree develops the same twelve cross-cutting capabilities. The profile below is the level this programme is designed to develop and verify by graduation, on the four-level scale in Part B2 of the Curriculum Compendium. Every claim above Level 2 is verified by someone other than the teaching lecturer.
- C1Intelligent Systems Fluency CriticalLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C2Quantitative and Evidential Reasoning CriticalLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C3Ethical and Contextual Judgement CriticalLevel 3 of 4, Independent
- C4Communication and PersuasionLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C5Disciplinary MasteryLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C6Technical Production and CraftLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C7Problem Framing and Systems ThinkingLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C8Collaboration and Multidisciplinary TeamingLevel 3 of 4, Independent
- C9Enterprise, Value and Commercial LiteracyLevel 3 of 4, Independent
- C10Professional Conduct and Workplace PerformanceLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C11Learning to Learn and Adaptive CapacityLevel 4 of 4, Leading
- C12Stewardship and Public Contribution CriticalLevel 3 of 4, Independent
Critical capabilities for this programme: Intelligent Systems Fluency · Quantitative and Evidential Reasoning · Ethical and Contextual Judgement · Stewardship and Public Contribution. A graduate cannot pass out of this programme below the stated level on any capability marked critical.
Programme Learning Outcomes
What you will be able to do
Each outcome is assessed, and each is tagged with the Forward capabilities it is verified against.
- PLO 1Make an original contribution to knowledge in health data science.
- PLO 2Design and execute rigorous research using human health data.
- PLO 3Publish in peer reviewed venues and withstand expert scrutiny.
- PLO 4Translate findings into clinical practice, policy or deployed systems.
- PLO 5Teach and supervise under mentorship.
- PLO 6Exercise research ethics, governance and community engagement to international standard.
Why this programme exists
Doctoral research at the intersection of medicine, biology and computation, anchored in African clinical and population data. The programme requires peer reviewed publication before submission, a translation statement, and evidence that the...
Admission requirements
A Master's degree in a health, biological, computational or quantitative discipline; a defensible proposal; ethics feasibility assessment; and a supervisor with capacity. Alternative pathways: Foundation Year, diploma entry with advanced standing, mature age entry and recognition of prior learning, all governed by Part A5 and Part G. Online applicants additionally complete the compulsory Digital Readiness orientation under Part D6.
Health & Bioengineering
Other open programmes in this School
Bachelor of Science in Digital Health and Health Informatics
Uganda's health system now runs on district health information systems, electronic medical records, laboratory and logistics systems and a growing layer of clinical algorithms, and it is staffed at the technical level almost entirely by peo...
View programme BEng (Hons)Bachelor of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering and Medical Devices
African hospitals are full of donated equipment that no longer works, and the reason is almost never the technology. It is the absence of biomedical engineers who can install, calibrate, repair and eventually design equipment for local cond...
View programme BSc (Hons)Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing
Biomanufacturing has been named a strategic discipline in every major industrial catalogue revision of the past three years, and the pandemic demonstrated with brutal clarity what it costs a continent to manufacture almost none of its own b...
View programme BSc (Hons)Bachelor of Science in Precision Public Health and Epidemiology
East Africa is the world's most consequential theatre for outbreak detection and response, and its public health workforce is overwhelmingly trained at postgraduate level, leaving districts staffed by people improvising with spreadsheets. T...
View programme BSc (Hons)Bachelor of Science in Nursing with Clinical Informatics
Nursing remains among the largest absolute job creators in the world and one of the few professions with guaranteed international demand. Uganda trains competent nurses; what it does not yet train is nurses who can lead the digital transfor...
View programme BPharm (Hons)Bachelor of Pharmacy with Computational Drug Discovery
Uganda imports the overwhelming majority of its medicines and manufactures a narrow band of generics, while substandard and falsified products remain a persistent public health threat. The pharmacist of the next twenty years must therefore ...
View programme MScMaster of Science in Biomedical Artificial Intelligence
Clinical machine learning is being deployed across African health systems faster than it is being validated, and models trained on distant populations are being applied to Ugandan patients with almost no local evidence. This programme produ...
View programme MPHMaster of Public Health in Digital Epidemiology
A Master of Public Health built for a surveillance environment that is now digital, genomic and real time. It trains population health leaders who can build and run modern surveillance and modelling capability rather than commission it, and...
View programme MScMaster of Science in Bioinformatics and Genomic Medicine
African genomes are the most diverse on earth and the least represented in reference databases, which means that precision medicine developed elsewhere routinely misclassifies African patients. Closing that gap requires African bioinformati...
View programme