Building the climate-ready health workforce of tomorrow
Categories: Action Line 2: Evidence-based policy strategy and capacity building, Climate-smart workforce, Health systems wide resilience
Country: Singapore
Organizations: Centre for Sustainable Medicine, National University of Singapore
The intervention
The Centre for Sustainable Medicine (CoSM) at the National University of Singapore launched two flagship postgraduate programmemes - the Master of Science (MSc) in Sustainable Healthcare and the Executive Fellowship in Sustainable Healthcare - to build leadership capacity for net-zero and climate-resilient health care. The programmemes equip healthcare professionals, policymakers, and system leaders with the evidence, skills, and networks to transform health systems sustainably.
Both programmemes provide a multidisciplinary foundation across sustainability science, health systems management, and implementation practice. The MSc offers core modules on climate, environment, and health, principles of sustainable healthcare, net zero analytics, and implementation of net zero healthcare, complemented by applied projects that bridge classroom learning with real-world impact. The Executive Fellowship - designed for policymakers, clinicians, sustainability leaders - blends asynchronous learning with in-person leadership intensives and mentorship.
Students and fellows learn directly from international experts and engage with healthcare leaders from across Asia Pacific and beyond. Through data-driven learning, networking, and implementation-focused coursework, these programmemes are preparing a new generation of health professionals capable of driving systems transformation towards resilience, sustainability and equity.
Success factors
The success of CoSM’s postgraduate programmes lies in three core strengths: interdisciplinary design, global partnerships, and experiential learning. By drawing expertise from medicine, public health, engineering, and sustainability science, the curriculum provides a comprehensive view of how health and environment intersect. Collaboration with international partners like the WHO, The Lancet, ADB and health ministries ensures that teaching remains globally relevant yet locally contextualized. Real-world learning - through implementation projects, mentorship, and leadership sessions - empowers participants to apply concepts directly to their institutions.
Based in the National University of Singapore - ranked 1st in Asia and 8th globally - the programmes benefit from a world-class academic environment that fosters excellence, innovation, and regional leadership. Singapore’s position as a hub for healthcare transformation and sustainability further enhances applied learning opportunities. The programmemes’ flexible structure and diverse faculty also attract professionals across disciplines, fostering peer exchange and cross-sector collaboration that amplify learning and long-term impact.
Recommendations
Developing a climate-ready health workforce is central to achieving resilient, equitable, and low-carbon health systems. CoSM’s postgraduate programmemes demonstrate how this can be done at scale through rigorous training, global collaboration, and real-world application. The model’s success is deeply rooted in Singapore’s policy environment, NUS Medicine’s academic excellence, and CoSM’s regional leadership across Asia Pacific. Together, these elements create a distinctive ecosystem that bridges research, education, and implementation. Institutions seeking to strengthen workforce capacity may draw lessons from CoSM’s integrated approach - combining data-driven learning, mentorship, and system-level.
Importantly, building a climate-ready workforce requires sustained, long-term investment and institutional commitment. It is a 10-20 year journey that extends far beyond individual workshops or short-term training initiatives. Embedding sustainability and climate literacy within formal education pathways ensures that future leaders are equipped not only to respond to immediate challenges, but to transform health systems for generations to come.
Key resources
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