CALL FOR APPLICATION FOR PhD FELLOWSHIP

Nepal Health Economics Association (NHEA) in collaboration with the Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting in Health (BCEPS), Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen (UiB), invites applications from qualified and motivated Nepalese candidates for the following PhD Fellowship under the Institutionalizing Evidence-Informed Priority Setting for Universal Health Coverage (EIPS4UHC) project in Nepal.

Position: PhD Fellow – Implementation Research on Health Systems, Governance and Legal Dimensions of Essential Health Services, for Strengthening BHS and the Progressive Realization of UHC in Nepal.

Duty Station: NHEA, Kathmandu, Nepal, with required research stay at the University of Bergen, Norway

Duration

3 years (36 months), full-time

Application Deadline

11 October 2026

This PhD fellowship, affiliated to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bergen, will study the implementation and performance of BHS within Nepal’s decentralized health system, across multiple dimensions including health systems performance, governance, and the legal architecture underpinning essential health services in Nepal. The work will draw on an interdisciplinary lens – health systems research, health policy analysis, and/or legal and human-rights scholarship – to examine how BHS entitlements are defined, operationalized, and realized in practice.

The candidate will produce a paper-based thesis comprising three publishable peer-reviewed manuscripts that generate policy-relevant evidence on strengthening essential health services in Nepal (BHS).

The PhD project will investigate the implementation of Nepal’s BHS package within the decentralized health system, examining the health-system, governance, and legal-institutional factors that influence BHS coverage, accessibility, quality, equity, and performance. This includes but is not limited to: health financing and resource allocation; service delivery and workforce capacity; medical products and health information systems; governance and accountability mechanisms; and the legal and human-rights dimensions of BHS – including constitutional and statutory guarantees, entitlements, and their justiciability – that shape how essential health services are defined, operationalized, and enforced.

Key themes may include, but are not limited to, the following interlinked areas

Training and Degree Requirements

Qualifications and Personal Qualities

Interested candidates must submit the following application documents

Applications should be submitted electronically to

Please clearly indicate the PhD stream you are applying for in the subject line of your email, using one of the following formats:

Applicants should apply to one PhD stream only and clearly state their selected stream in the email subject line.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for further selection and screening process.

NHEA reserves the right to assess candidates based on their academic qualifications, research potential, relevance of proposed research, and suitability for the project and PhD programme.

https://www.jobsnepal.com/call-for-application-for-phd-fellowship-144372