The Public Health Institute of Georgia publishes a research agenda for each of its topics and keeps every call open. Each agenda explains why its questions matter with the key references behind them, names the partners and institutions PHIG would expect to work with, and states what PHIG itself brings. The questions below are the ones the institute considers most important and most answerable in Georgia and its region; each topic states the data and access PHIG can provide. Anyone may propose work — from a one-page expression of interest to a full study — and every response receives a reasoned decision. Outputs are published open access with a DOI through the Georgian Medical Journal and the data deposited under CC BY (Open Science Policy).
Health and migration
Topic page: publichealth.ge/health-migration/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
One in eight people worldwide is a migrant or displaced [1]; WHO’s first world report on the health of refugees and migrants found that they frequently experience worse outcomes than host populations because of barriers to care rather than health status on arrival [1]. WHO’s Global Competency Standards (2021) define what every health worker should be able to do for these groups, and PHIG is one of the few institutes that has delivered them end-to-end [2]. Georgia is at once a transit, destination and origin country, and the EU–Georgia Association Agreement commits it to cooperation on migrant health and public health [3]. The questions above are those that WHO, IOM and national ministries cannot answer without field data from exactly the settings PHIG works in.
Priority questions
- How do competency-based trainings (WHO Global Competency Standards for refugee and migrant health) change clinical practice and patient experience six and twelve months after delivery, in Georgia and in humanitarian settings such as Dadaab and Kakuma?
- What are the health needs, service use and barriers of the main migrant groups in Georgia — labour migrants from Central Asia and South Asia, Ukrainian displaced persons, returning Georgian emigrants — and how do they differ by legal status?
- How do non-communicable diseases present and get managed among refugees and migrants in protracted displacement, and which service models (community health workers, task-sharing, mobile units) reach them?
- What health-system data on migrants exist in Georgia and the region, and how can national health-workforce and health-information systems disaggregate by migration status without creating risk for the people counted?
- Which policy instruments (Association Agreement commitments, bilateral labour agreements, WHO Europe frameworks) have changed migrant health entitlements in practice, and what explains implementation gaps?
- What are the occupational health exposures of migrant workers in Georgia and of Georgian workers abroad (construction, care, agriculture, seafaring), and which protections work?
Potential partners and institutions
- WHO Health and Migration Programme (HQ) — normative lead on the competency standards PHIG delivers
- WHO Regional Office for Europe — regional migrant-health situation analyses and training
- International Organization for Migration (IOM) Georgia — migration data and field access
- UNHCR Georgia — refugee and asylum populations, protection data
- Lancet Migration — global research collaboration on migration and health
- EU Delegation to Georgia — Association Agreement implementation and funding calls
- Ministry of IDPs, Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia — policy counterpart
Key references
- World Health Organization. World report on the health of refugees and migrants. Geneva: WHO; 2022. link
- World Health Organization. Refugee and migrant health: global competency standards for health workers. Geneva: WHO; 2021. link
- Association Agreement between the European Union and Georgia, Title VI Chapter 22 (Public health). OJ L 261, 30.8.2014. link
- WHO Regional Office for Europe. Health of refugees and migrants: regional situation analysis, practices, experiences, lessons learned and ways forward. Copenhagen: WHO Europe; 2018. link
- International Organization for Migration. World Migration Report 2024. Geneva: IOM; 2024. link
Health workforce competencies (RHWCO)
Topic page: publichealth.ge/rhwco/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
The Lancet Commission on health professionals for a new century argued that credentials and curricula must be redesigned around competencies rather than time served [1]. WHO’s Global Competency and Outcomes Framework for UHC (2022) and the WHO-ASPHER framework for the public health workforce (2020) give the reference models [2,3], and WHO Europe’s Framework for Action on the Health and Care Workforce 2023–2030 asks Member States to move to competency-based education and regulation [4]. Georgia has more physicians per head than the EU but half its nurse-to-physician ratio (WHO NHWA data on the Georgia evidence page) and an attestation system that records hours, not performance — which is why a validation study of attendance versus competence is the first question.
Priority questions
- Does attestation based on attendance predict clinical performance? A validation study comparing CPD credit records with observed competence in one or more specialties in Georgia.
- Which of the eight document types in the RHWCO typology are in force in each of the twelve countries, and what explains convergence or divergence with WHO and WHO-ASPHER frameworks?
- What is the competency profile of Georgia’s nursing workforce, and which competency framework and career pathway would close the nurse-to-physician gap shown in the Georgia evidence page?
- How are competencies for public health functions (surveillance, emergency response, health promotion) defined and assessed in the region, and how do they map to the WHO Essential Public Health Functions?
- What are the labour-market effects of mutual recognition (EU Directive 2005/36/EC, the UNESCO Global Convention) on health-worker migration from the RHWCO region, and what do source countries lose or gain?
- How can National Health Workforce Accounts be extended to record competence rather than headcount, and what would a pilot module look like?
Potential partners and institutions
- WHO Health Workforce Department (HQ) — NHWA, competency frameworks, Workforce 2030
- WHO Regional Office for Europe — Health Workforce and Service Delivery — regional framework for action
- ASPHER — public health competency framework and school accreditation
- UEMS — Section of Public Health — specialist training standards in Europe
- ILO — Sectoral Policies Department (health services) — decent work for health workers
- European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies — health workforce policy analysis, HiT country profiles
- NCEQE — National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement — accreditation of Georgian medical and public health programmes
- David Tvildiani Medical University — School of Public Health — academic host and training partner
Key references
- Frenk J, Chen L, Bhutta ZA, et al. Health professionals for a new century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world. Lancet. 2010;376(9756):1923–58. link
- World Health Organization. Global competency and outcomes framework for universal health coverage. Geneva: WHO; 2022. link
- WHO Regional Office for Europe, ASPHER. WHO-ASPHER competency framework for the public health workforce in the European Region. Copenhagen: WHO Europe; 2020. link
- WHO Regional Office for Europe. Framework for action on the health and care workforce in the WHO European Region 2023–2030. Copenhagen: WHO Europe; 2023. link
- World Health Organization. Global strategy on human resources for health: Workforce 2030. Geneva: WHO; 2016. link
- World Bank. World Development Indicators: physicians per 1,000 people (SH.MED.PHYS.ZS); nurses and midwives per 1,000 people (SH.MED.NUMW.P3). Source: WHO National Health Workforce Accounts. link
Labour, occupational safety and health (GILS)
Topic page: publichealth.ge/labour/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
The ILO estimates that work-related accidents and diseases cause close to three million deaths a year, and in 2022 it added a safe and healthy working environment to its fundamental principles and rights at work [1,2]. Georgia adopted a new Law on Occupational Safety in 2019 and re-established labour inspection, but reporting and enforcement data remain thin [3]; the Association Agreement commits Georgia to approximate the EU occupational safety and health acquis [4]. Heat, air pollution and climate-related exposures are rising for outdoor workers [5]. GILS exists to put sourced evidence behind these questions.
Priority questions
- What is the burden of occupational injury and disease in Georgia by sector, and how complete is reporting under the Law on Occupational Safety (2019) compared with insurance, hospital and Geostat data?
- How do heat, air quality and climate-related exposures affect agricultural, construction and transport workers in Georgia, and which adaptation measures are affordable?
- What are the working conditions, pay and safety of health and care workers in Georgia, and how do they relate to retention and emigration?
- How effective are labour inspection, workplace safety specialists and employer-level OSH management systems since 2019, and what determines compliance in small enterprises?
- What is the extent of informal, platform and migrant labour in Georgia, and what protections reach these workers in practice?
- How do Georgian OSH and labour standards compare with EU acquis obligations under the Association Agreement, and where are the ratification and implementation gaps for ILO conventions?
Potential partners and institutions
- ILO — LABADMIN/OSH branch — global OSH policy and inspection guidance
- ILO Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia (DWT/CO Moscow) and ILO Georgia projects — country-level decent work programmes
- Labour Inspection Office of Georgia — enforcement data and joint studies
- European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) — EU OSH evidence and tools
- Georgian Trade Unions Confederation — worker-side access and surveys
- Geostat — National Statistics Office of Georgia — labour force survey data
- ICOH — International Commission on Occupational Health — scientific network
Key references
- International Labour Organization. A call for safer and healthier working environments. Geneva: ILO; 2023. link
- International Labour Organization. ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (as amended 2022) — safe and healthy working environment. link
- Law of Georgia on Occupational Safety, 2019. Legislative Herald of Georgia. link
- Association Agreement between the European Union and Georgia, Title VI Chapter 14 (Employment, social policy and equal opportunities) and Annex XXX. link
- International Labour Organization. Ensuring safety and health at work in a changing climate. Geneva: ILO; 2024. link
- ILO Convention No. 155 (Occupational Safety and Health, 1981) and Convention No. 187 (Promotional Framework, 2006). link
Accreditation, quality and patient safety
Topic page: publichealth.ge/accreditation/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
Patient harm is estimated to be among the leading causes of death and disability worldwide, and WHO’s Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030 asks every country to build quality and safety systems [1]. Evidence that accreditation improves outcomes is positive but uneven, which is why independent, context-specific evaluation matters [2]. Georgia introduced voluntary hospital accreditation after advocacy begun by PHIG in 2014, with Accreditation Canada and later ASF standards; no national outcome evaluation has yet been published. ISQua’s external evaluation principles and ISO/IEC 17020 impartiality rules set the bar for what such a study must show [3,4].
Priority questions
- What has been the measurable effect of accreditation (Accreditation Canada, ASF, ISO 9001/15189 readiness) on patient-safety indicators in Georgian hospitals and laboratories?
- Which patient-centred quality measures (as piloted in the SheniEkimi certification) are valid, feasible and acceptable in Georgian primary and ambulatory care?
- How do facility accreditation standards interact with individual competency regulation — do accredited facilities assess staff competence differently?
- What is the cost of accreditation for a Georgian hospital, clinic or laboratory, who pays, and what is the return in reimbursement, contracts and outcomes?
- How can accreditation be adapted to crisis and transitional settings (the ASF four-category classification), and what evidence supports the adaptations?
- What governance models keep accreditation bodies independent of providers, payers and government in small health systems?
Potential partners and institutions
- ISQua — International Society for Quality in Health Care — external evaluation and standards accreditation
- Accreditation Canada / HSO — standards and the Georgia office represented by PHIG
- Accréditation Sans Frontières — sister organisation; Hospital, Ambulatory, LTC, PHC standards
- WHO Patient Safety Flagship — global action plan implementation
- European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies — quality strategy evidence
- Georgian hospital groups and the National Center for Disease Control — facility and outcome data
Key references
- World Health Organization. Global patient safety action plan 2021–2030. Geneva: WHO; 2021. link
- Araujo CAS, Siqueira MM, Malik AM. Hospital accreditation impact on healthcare quality dimensions: a systematic review. Int J Qual Health Care. 2020;32(8):531–44. link
- ISQua. Guidelines and principles for the development of health and social care standards (5th ed.). Dublin: ISQua; 2018. link
- ISO/IEC 17020:2012 Conformity assessment — Requirements for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection. Geneva: ISO. link
- OECD/European Observatory. Improving healthcare quality in Europe: characteristics, effectiveness and implementation of different strategies. Copenhagen; 2019. link
Epidemiology and non-communicable diseases
Topic page: publichealth.ge/pillars/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
Non-communicable diseases cause about three quarters of deaths worldwide and the large majority in Georgia, where premature NCD mortality is well above the EU average [1,2]. Georgia strengthened tobacco control in 2018 and is a Party to the WHO FCTC, with smoking prevalence still among the highest in the Region [3,4]; alcohol consumption is high by European standards [1]. The NCDC statistical yearbook and Geostat provide the national series; WHO Europe’s Health for All database provides comparability [2,5]. These questions are chosen because they can be answered with existing data and bear directly on policy decisions now before Georgia.
Priority questions
- What are the trends and determinants of premature NCD mortality in Georgia by sex, region and socio-economic position, using NCDC, Geostat and WHO data?
- How effective and equitable are Georgia’s tobacco control measures (advertising bans, smoke-free law, taxation) since 2018, and what is the next evidence-based step?
- What is the burden of alcohol-related harm in Georgia and which policies are supported by the evidence and feasible politically?
- How do supplements, traditional remedies and self-medication contribute to NCD management and harm in Georgia (linking to Sheni Labs and SupplementIndex data)?
- What is the state of cancer screening coverage and timeliness, and what explains uptake differences?
- Which surveillance capacities (laboratory, data, workforce) proved weakest during COVID-19 and have they been rebuilt?
Potential partners and institutions
- WHO Regional Office for Europe — NCD Office (Moscow/Copenhagen) and WHO Country Office Georgia — NCD surveillance and policy
- NCDC Georgia — national data and surveillance
- Geostat — mortality and population data
- IHME — burden-of-disease estimates
- Tbilisi State Medical University; Ilia State University — academic epidemiology partners
- US CDC — Global Health, South Caucasus — field epidemiology training legacy
Key references
- World Health Organization. Noncommunicable diseases progress monitor 2022. Geneva: WHO; 2022. link
- WHO Regional Office for Europe. European Health for All database (HFA-DB). link
- World Health Organization. WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2023. Geneva: WHO; 2023. link
- WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; Law of Georgia on Tobacco Control (2017, in force 2018). link
- National Center for Disease Control and Public Health of Georgia. Health care statistical yearbook (annual). link
- Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Global Burden of Disease — Georgia country profile. link
Regional health policy (Caucasus, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Türkiye)
Topic page: publichealth.ge/pillars/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine are EU candidate countries with association agreements that shape their health governance; the Caucasus and Central Asia share Soviet-era health-system legacies and WHO Europe membership, and Türkiye bridges the two [1,2]. The European Observatory’s Health Systems in Transition profiles and WHO Europe’s European Programme of Work provide the comparative base [2,3]; the Tallinn Charter and the Astana Declaration set the policy commitments [4,5]. No institute currently compares these twelve systems on workforce, quality and product safety together — the observatories of the PHIG network are built to do so.
Priority questions
- How have EU association and candidate processes changed health governance, financing and regulation in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, and what is transferable to Armenia and Central Asia?
- What cross-border health issues (migration, infectious disease, pharmaceutical and supplement markets, health-worker flows) require regional mechanisms, and which exist?
- How do universal health coverage programmes in the region perform on financial protection and service coverage, and what do the gaps have in common?
- What is the role of non-State actors — institutes, professional associations, accreditation bodies — in regional health policy, and how are they governed?
- How resilient are regional health systems to emergencies (conflict, displacement, earthquakes, outbreaks), measured by WHO benchmarks?
- Which regional data commons (workforce accounts, product safety alerts, labour statistics) are feasible and who would host them?
Potential partners and institutions
- WHO Regional Office for Europe — Country Health Policies and Systems — policy dialogue
- European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies — HiT profiles and policy briefs
- OECD — Health Division (Eurasia Competitiveness Programme) — comparative indicators
- World Bank — Health, Nutrition and Population, South Caucasus — financing and UHC analyses
- EUPHA and WFPHA — public health associations and advocacy platforms
- Asian Development Bank — Central and West Asia — health system investments in Central Asia
Key references
- European Commission. Georgia 2024 Report (enlargement package). link
- European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Health Systems in Transition (HiT) country profiles — Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Türkiye, Ukraine, Uzbekistan. link
- WHO Regional Office for Europe. European Programme of Work 2020–2025 — United Action for Better Health. Copenhagen; 2021. link
- WHO Regional Office for Europe. The Tallinn Charter: Health Systems for Health and Wealth. 2008. link
- WHO, UNICEF. Declaration of Astana: Global Conference on Primary Health Care. 2018. link
Public health education and professional training
Topic page: publichealth.ge/pillars/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
Competency-based education is the global direction for health professions [1], and ASPHER’s and WHO’s frameworks define the public health competencies that curricula should produce [2]. Georgia’s medical programmes have moved to WFME-aligned accreditation standards, and online learning has expanded rapidly, but evidence on what the training changes in practice is scarce. GMJ Academy, with more than 200 free courses and a learning-data base, and DTMU’s School of Public Health give PHIG the platform to answer these questions rigorously [3,4].
Priority questions
- Do competency-based MPH and CME programmes in Georgia produce measurable differences in practice compared with attendance-based ones?
- What is the effect of free, open online courses (GMJ Academy) on uptake of guidelines among Georgian health workers, and who is reached?
- How should public health curricula in the region align with WHO-ASPHER competencies and with employers’ needs?
- What are the barriers to recognition of Georgian health qualifications in the EU and the effect on emigration and return?
- Which training formats work for humanitarian and migrant-health settings (short courses, simulation, mentoring, peer learning)?
- How can academic–institute partnerships (DTMU–PHIG model) be structured for research output and student training?
Potential partners and institutions
- ASPHER — school accreditation and competency framework
- WFME — medical education standards and recognition
- AMEE — medical education research community
- UNESCO IIEP and UNESCO Tbilisi/Almaty offices — qualifications recognition, planning
- NCEQE — Georgian programme accreditation
- David Tvildiani Medical University; Tbilisi State Medical University — academic partners
- Erasmus+ National Office Georgia — EU education funding
Key references
- Frank JR, Snell L, Ten Cate O, et al. Competency-based medical education: theory to practice. Med Teach. 2010;32(8):638–45. link
- WHO Regional Office for Europe, ASPHER. WHO-ASPHER competency framework for the public health workforce in the European Region. 2020. link
- World Federation for Medical Education. Basic Medical Education: WFME Global Standards for Quality Improvement, 2020 revision. link
- World Health Organization. Transforming and scaling up health professionals’ education and training: WHO guidelines. Geneva: WHO; 2013. link
- UNESCO. Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education. 2019. link
Product science and consumer safety (Sheni Labs, SupplementIndex)
Topic page: https://shenilabs.ge/ · Agenda version 1.0, 6 October 2026 · Reviewed annually
Why these questions
Supplements and cosmetics are regulated as foods and consumer products, not medicines, and the evidence of harm — hidden pharmaceuticals, prohibited ingredients, undeclared allergens — comes mainly from regulator alerts such as FDA tainted-product warnings and the EU Safety Gate [1,2]. Georgia aligns its food and cosmetics law with the EU acquis under the Association Agreement, so EU restrictions are the reference standard [3]; WHO’s guidance on traditional medicine and on substandard and falsified products frames the public health risk [4,5]. Sheni Labs’ published method and SupplementIndex’s database make these questions measurable.
Priority questions
- What proportion of supplements, cosmetics and household products on the Georgian market contain ingredients prohibited or restricted in the EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia or Japan, and how does this change over time?
- How do consumers in Georgia choose and use supplements and traditional remedies, and what information changes behaviour?
- What is the frequency and nature of regulator alerts affecting products sold in Georgia, and how fast do they reach consumers and retailers?
- Which label, lot-numbering and verification standards improve traceability in small markets, and at what cost?
- What drug–supplement interactions are most relevant to Georgian prescribing patterns?
- How should a national product-safety alert system be designed and who should run it?
Potential partners and institutions
- European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) — ingredient safety assessments
- European Medicines Agency — Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPC) — herbal monographs
- National Food Agency of Georgia — market surveillance
- US FDA — Office of Dietary Supplement Programs — alert data
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements — evidence fact sheets
- ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratories in Georgia and the EU — analytical testing
- Consumers International / Georgian consumer organisations — consumer research
Key references
- US Food and Drug Administration. Tainted products marketed as dietary supplements (health fraud) — alerts database. link
- European Commission. Safety Gate: the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products. link
- Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products; Regulation (EC) No 1925/2006 on the addition of vitamins and minerals to foods; Directive 2002/46/EC on food supplements. link
- World Health Organization. WHO global report on traditional and complementary medicine 2019. Geneva: WHO; 2019. link
- World Health Organization. WHO global surveillance and monitoring system for substandard and falsified medical products. Geneva: WHO; 2017. link
Open call for research — rolling, no deadline
PHIG invites researchers, institutes, WHO and ILO colleagues, professional bodies and doctoral candidates to propose work on any question above, or a question of their own within the topic. We welcome three kinds of response: a study proposal (1–3 pages: question, design, data, team, timeline, what you need from PHIG); an expression of interest to join an existing programme; or a data or access offer.
What PHIG provides: the data and access listed for each topic; methodological review by the Scientific Committee; ethics support (Policy 49); publication as an open-access working paper or article in the Georgian Medical Journal with a DOI, or on the relevant observatory page; open data deposit under CC BY; co-authorship on the ICMJE criteria; and, where funding exists, a contract under the Advisory and Commissioned Services Policy. Pro bono collaboration is recognised under the Volunteer and Expert Engagement Policy.
How we decide: responses are logged on receipt and acknowledged within five working days; the Scientific Committee reviews them on relevance, rigour, feasibility and ethics, with conflict-of-interest declarations from reviewers (Policy 01) and selection under Policy 61; a decision and reasons follow within 30 working days. Reasons are always given.
Send to: info@accreditation.ge with the subject line Call for research — [topic]. No fee is charged and no payment is made for proposals; the lab and the institute never grade their own products or partners.
Governance
Research under these agendas follows the PHIG Policy Framework: Code of Ethics and Research Integrity (ALLEA), Human Subjects Protection, Data Protection, Open Science, Conflict of Interest and Financial Conflict of Interest in Research, Editorial Independence, and the firm exclusion of the tobacco, nicotine, vaping and arms industries from any funding or partnership. Agendas are reviewed each year by the Scientific Committee; proposals to add or change a question are welcome at the same address.
Note on partners: the organisations named under each topic are those whose mandates and data make them natural partners for the questions listed. Naming them indicates relevance, not an existing agreement or endorsement; PHIG’s current relationships are described on the legal status and international standing page. Illustrations are original PHIG graphics.