Karl Blanchet

Co-chair

Professor in Humanitarian Public Health at the University of Geneva and the Director of the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies

Professor Karl Blanchet is a Professor in Humanitarian Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva and the Director of the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies.

Professor Blanchet’s research focuses on system resilience and health systems issues in global health, specifically in post-conflict and conflict-affected countries. He has developed innovative research approaches based on complexity science and system thinking. Karl is also developing a priority package of essential health services for countries like Afghanistan and, more generally, for humanitarian crises. Karl Blanchet was one of the coPI of the Lancet Series on Women’s and Children’s Health in Conflict Settings, he is the co-Chair of the CHH-Lancet Commission on Health, Conflict, and Forced Displacement and of the Lancet Migration Europe. Karl is also the coPI of the PULSE study focusing on community engagement during vaccination programmes in Nigeria and Ethiopia and the PI of the Senselet study in Ethiopia on diabetes and hypertension in Ethiopia. Karl is the Academic Director of InZone, a University of Geneva academic project offering university courses for refugee populations.

Before joining the University of Geneva, Professor Blanchet worked in health systems research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine since 2010 and was the co-founder and co-director of the Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre. He is further one of the academic leads of the MOOC on Operational Research for Humanitarians and gave an LSHTM TED Talk on health systems and complexity.