RCSI Institute of Global Surgery
The work of the RCSI Institute of Global Surgery focuses on improving access to high-quality surgical care for underserved populations. Access to surgery is a prerequisite for achieving UN SDG 3. We collaborate globally with our partners on sustainable projects aimed at improving the lives of both patients and providers. Most of our current work is centred in sub-Saharan Africa, where the need for access to safe surgery is greatest.
Education and training
The Institute leverages RCSI’s expertise and experience to support African surgical and perioperative training bodies in achieving their own goals, with funding from Irish Aid. This support includes training anaesthesiology trainers, supporting early-career surgical researchers and developing mobile apps for surgical training logbooks. A particular highlight in 2024/2025 was when our partner, the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) surpassed 1,000 surgical graduates. COSECSA has now graduated 1,048 surgeons, who will collectively perform over 10 million procedures during their careers.
Alongside RCSI SIM and other RCSI departments, the Institute provides a structured mentorship programme and community of practice for teams in low-resource settings developing openaccess, low-cost surgical simulation modules.
Members of the surgical team in these settings often lack access to context-appropriate training materials. The Institute hosts and supports the online training platforms of three training colleges and two NGOs, co-creates e-learning courses and translates courses into local languages to increase accessibility.
Having celebrated its second anniversary in June 2025, the open access United Nations Global Surgery Learning Hub (SURGhub) continues to bring together high-quality, peer-reviewed surgical, anesthetic, obstetric and nursing e-learning courses in a single open access hub. SURGhub now has over 20,000 enrolled learners from more than 190 countries. This global project is underpinned by the Global Surgery Foundation, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and RCSI, in association with the J&J Foundation. It received the 2024 THE Award for ‘Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year’. Research In 2024, the RCSI Institute of Global Surgery continued to deliver impactful research and systems-strengthening work across Africa. The Akazi project remained Malawi’s leading breast cancer care programme, influencing national policy and improving patient outcomes. This year saw the development of the country’s first guidance on early breast pathology detection, alongside the rollout of structured training for rural clinicians.
The KidSURG project advanced paediatric surgical care in rural Malawi through specialist outreach and mobile-based clinical support. The programme trained 39 non-doctor clinicians and enabled over 380 surgical procedures with a 96% survival rate for referred children, demonstrating a sustainable, cost-effective model for paediatric surgery in low-resource settings.
Building on from KidSURG, the team was invited to collaborate with Malawi’s Ministry of Health in developing the country’s first national plan for paediatric surgery. Evidence from our previous and ongoing studies provided a critical foundation for the plan, which marks a significant step forward in formalising and expanding access to safe surgery for children. This milestone reflects RCSI’s long-standing commitment to supporting the development of surgical systems in Malawi.
Our new collaborative research methods course, developed with African partners, trained over 40 postgraduate students and registrars in its first year. The programme builds regional research capacity in qualitative and implementation science, and newly obtained funding will support its expansion through hybrid learning models.
In Zambia, the team contributed to the evaluation of the National Surgical, Obstetric and Anaesthesia Plan and remains involved in the working group developing the next national plan. This engagement highlights the Institute’s growing role in regional surgical policy development. The Institute’s achievements were recognised through the Impact Award at the Researcher of the Year (IRC legacy) Awards, presented to Dr Jakub Gajewski. We also deepened our commitment to student-academic partnership through our involvement in the Student Engagement and Partnership (StEP) programme, which promotes co-designed research and mentorship. These milestones reflect RCSI’s continued leadership in global surgery, with an expanding impact on service delivery, research capacity and health policy across sub-Saharan Africa.
Times Higher Education 2024 awardee for Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year
We are proud that SURGhub was awarded the 2024 Times Higher Education (THE) Award for Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year. Widely known as ‘the Oscars of higher education’, the THE Awards celebrate outstanding innovation and excellence in university led initiatives – making this a truly prestigious recognition of our work.
SURGhub, the United Nations Global Surgery Learning Hub developed in partnership between RCSI’s Institute of Global Surgery, UNITAR and the Global Surgery Foundation, was launched in June 2023 to tackle the global surgical training gap by providing frontline healthcare workers in low- and middleincome countries with access to free, high-quality, contextappropriate training courses in surgery, anaesthesia, obstetrics and gynaecology, perioperative nursing and non-clinical skills. Within just months, the platform attracted over 21,000 learners from 190 countries, of which 71% were from low- or middleincome nations, highlighting SURGhub’s global relevance and reach. The THE award recognises the platform’s innovative open access design, its user-friendly interface and its participatory, volunteerled approach: content is provided by 28 academic and professional partners, curated and quality assured by more than 150 global experts, including clinicians, nurses, educators and technologists, while Johnson & Johnson Foundation funding enables free delivery.
This recognition is more than symbolic – it underscores SURGhub’s impact in democratising surgical education and accelerating access to lifesaving knowledge where it is needed most. In a sector where nearly one-third of global mortality relates to surgical conditions and over 17 million preventable deaths occur annually without access to safe surgical care, SURGhub is helping to bridge that gap and save millions of lives.
Winning the THE Award validates our vision of equitable, quality learning at scale. It affirms the power of collaboration across UN agencies, global surgery NGOs, academic partners and volunteers. As we reflect on this achievement, we see it as both recognition and a mandate: to keep expanding access to effective, freely available surgical training to healthcare providers worldwide.