The WHO Academy is the World Health Organization’s state-of-the-art lifelong learning centre, bringing the very latest innovations in adult learning to global health. Now under development with the support of France, the Academy will scale up learning for impact through online, in-person and blended learning programmes, reaching millions of health workers and others all over the world. Using the latest technologies, it will enable all learners to tailor their learning experiences to meet their own needs and award them digital credentials they can use to verify their competencies and advance their careers.
The WHO Academy will be a school for the future – with a vision of a healthier, safer, fairer world.
The quickening pace of scientific discovery and advancement of technology is making it more difficult — not less — for health workers, policymakers and other public health practitioners to keep up with evidence-based health practice and policy. As a result, it often takes more than a decade to put new evidence-based health guidance into practice.
This is a key reason why no countries are currently on track to achieve all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) health targets. The COVID-19 pandemic has also disrupted lifelong learning systems, generating growing demand for digital learning.
Advancements in the science of adult learning science offer new and efficient ways of getting critical guidance to health workers and others who need it. Using the latest technologies, the Academy will expand access to critical learning for health workers, managers, public health officials, educators, researchers and policymakers – as well as the WHO and UN workforce around the world. It will offer multilingual, personalized learning programmes in digital, in-person and blended formats, deploying the latest evidence-based health guidance and state-of-the-art learning technologies. The vast majority of its learners will use online means to access the Academy’s programmes, which will be made available via desktop and mobile devices and in low-bandwidth settings, thereby ensuring an equitable, global and diverse cohort of learners.
The WHO Academy campus in Lyon, France – to be completed in 2024 – will reflect WHO’s values and ambitions: it will be a smart, accessible, eco-friendly and interactive facility in the heart of Lyon’s bio-medical district
When it opens, the WHO Academy campus will have high-tech spaces for collaborative learning design, educational research and innovation. It will also host a world-class health emergencies simulation centre that will use the latest technologies to enable health workers to sharpen their competencies amid realistic scenarios including mass casualties and disease outbreaks.
As a WHO Member State and a key actor in global health, France is the lead investor for the Academy’s development, having committed more than 120 million EUR to support its establishment and infrastructure. This achievement is possible thanks to the collective actions, commitment and financial support of the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region, the Lyon Metropole and the City of Lyon.
27 September 2021 14:30 – 17:30 CET | Cité Internationale, Lyon, France
On 27 September 2021, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom and French President Emmanuel Macron joined to commemorate the groundbreaking of the WHO Academy campus in Lyon, France. The building will be part of the city’s world-class bio-medical district.
Read the full press release here.
