The proposed Jean Monnet Chair innovates by proposing teaching on EU matters in medical sciences in the area of global health, humanitarian medicine and aid along with medical management of emergencies by the EU, civil protection and response to natural or man-made disasters, the interrelation between humanitarian aid by traditional humanitarian actors, partners of ECHO, and state, or even military actors, and the challenges of blurring the lines of EU principled response to crises. These are issues that the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) in its Medical school has never systematically examined.
The JMC EU MEDAID activities include:
- a) two courses in the University curriculum, linking academia and the professional humanitarian medical sector, and providing an opportunity for early-career professionals (masters) and students (undergraduate) to learn and to contribute to new theories and practical implementation on the research and policy of EU’s comprehensive approach to health disasters, civil protection mechanisms, humanitarian action challenges, coordination and beyond;
- b) two advanced seminars with an innovative training methodology of inter-disciplinary approach to disasters, linking technocratic skills and academic EU legal and institutional studies, with ‘hands on’ table-top exercises, in which participants will learn how to assess needs, according to EU, UN and Red Cross/Crescent methodology, and how to efficiently adopt synergies among EU mechanisms, national and regional authorities, based on the EU training modules;
- c) an annual Conference presenting the outcomes of research, essays and methodology, new modules, and basic elements of such an innovative training approach, in University and professional training which will be open to the public and include a publication of the research outcome of the endeavor.