What are we teaching, what’s missing — and what needs to change? How well is Scotland’s education system really preparing people for the digital future of health and care?
In 2021, DHI carried out a national review of higher and further education courses linked to digital health and care — and the results were striking. Only a tiny proportion of courses engaged explicitly with digital health, and truly interdisciplinary provision was rare. Since then, both education and digital technologies have moved on at pace.
This placement invites a PhD student to take the lead on updating and interrogating that picture — asking what has changed, where innovation is emerging, and where gaps persist. Rather than simply cataloguing courses, the focus is on making sense of the landscape: how digital capability is framed, which disciplines are connecting (or not), and what this means for workforce readiness.
The project will produce at least one substantial output (for example, a co‑authored policy report, briefing paper or academic article outline), shaped around the student’s interests and strengths. There is clear scope for the student to bring their own analytical lens, disciplinary perspective and ideas to the work.
