Duration
1 or 2 years
Training Structure
School of Medicine, School of Pharmacy
Overview
The purpose of the Master’s program is to provide healthcare executives, on the one hand, and physicians and other medical professionals, on the other—and more generally, all healthcare professionals—with training that complements their initial technical education in the fields of the humanities and gerontology. It thus offers, within the Montpellier School of Medicine, specialized training focused on emerging issues surrounding dependency and autonomy in a context where a university education is becoming a necessity.
In the fields of human relations management related to chronic illness, the administration of facilities and services specializing in gerontology, and research in the humanities and social sciences, the University of Montpellier is particularly well-positioned to offer a program that is both integrated into the healthcare system and focused on the humanities.
The master's program and its three tracks thus offer a unique and innovative approach to health that bridges the life sciences and the human sciences within a medical university.
Program
Select a program
Epidemiology, Health Data, Biostatistics - EDSB
The Master’s program in Epidemiology, Health Data, and Biostatistics (EDSB) trains specialists capable of designing studies, analyzing complex data, and interpreting results in the fields of health and life sciences. The program is based on three major complementary fields: epidemiology, biostatistics, and data science. It aims to provide students with dual expertise that combines their prior experience in understanding biological, medical, or public health issues with mastery of the quantitative methods necessary for the rigorous analysis of data. Our students are valuable assets to teams working in biology and health, as they possess the necessary background to grasp the issues at hand and the skills to develop data collection protocols, as well as to analyze and interpret this data appropriately and independently. This proper analysis of data in biology and health is a major challenge for research in the coming years, as data sets are becoming increasingly large and numerous, and errors in their analysis can lead (and have already led in the past) to erroneous or non-reproducible conclusions that undermine the credibility of the entire research field. Genuine expertise in data analysis is therefore essential today to address complex biological and/or health-related questions (biomarker discovery, identification of disease determinants, evaluation of the effectiveness of health interventions, personalized medicine, omics data, etc.). This objective is the “DNA” of our program.
The master’s program is designed in particular for students from the fields of health, life sciences, and health sciences who wish to develop expertise in data analysis applied to research. The first year of the master’s program is common to both tracks and provides a solid methodological foundation in epidemiology, statistics, programming, and data management and analysis. It then leads to two main tracks in the second year:
- the Health Data Analysis track, focused on clinical research, epidemiology, public health, and the use of health data collected in real-world settings (Real-World Data (RWD); Real-World Evidence (RWE));
- The Data Scientist track for the life sciences, focused on the analysis of complex biological data and data science methods applied to the life sciences.
This program allows students to gradually develop skills ranging from study design to statistical analysis, modeling, validation, interpretation, and the scientific application of results. The courses focus in particular on R, SAS, and Python, as well as modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence methods.
The master’s program prepares students for careers in academic or hospital research, healthcare facilities, public health agencies, the life sciences industry, and life sciences companies, as well as for pursuing a Ph.D.
REHAB
This training program did not previously exist at the Montpellier-Nîmes School of Medicine at the University of Montpellier. The REHAB program addresses new training needs arising from changes in the healthcare system:
- Changes in the Healthcare Professions:
- Expanding the Scope of Research in the Medical and Surgical Professions
- The Integration of Paramedical Professions into Higher Education, Particularly in the Field of Rehabilitation
- Creation of new professions in the field of rehabilitation: adapted physical activity instructors, digital health engineers (virtual reality, home automation, robotics, connected devices, big data, brain-computer interfaces, functional electrical stimulation, neuromodulation, embedded sensors, etc.), telemedicine operators, care pathway coordinators, rehabilitation facility technicians, etc.Training for these new professions will make it possible to create new training tracks upon graduation from the LAS.
The REHAB track of the Master’s in Health program aims to train researchers in the field of Rehabilitation. It is a health research program specifically focused on human functioning in both normal and pathological conditions, with the goal of reducing sensorimotor impairments, restoring or compensating for activity limitations, and reducing disabilities.
This two-year program is open to students in the health sciences, students in the natural sciences, and students in the physical and sports sciences and technology.
The uniqueness of this program lies in the breadth of its curriculum, which is based on an interdisciplinary approach to health and provides scientific knowledge in the fields of physical therapy and rehabilitation, as well as theoretical and practical methodological knowledge that enables the implementation of high-quality research strategies aimed at improving the population’s health, reducing neuromusculoskeletal disabilities, and better understanding the complex challenges posed by the evolution of health care systems—both societal and technological.
The REHAB track within the Master’s in Health program at the Montpellier/Nîmes Faculty of Medicine consists of a common first-year Master’s program (M1) offered by the Faculty of Medicine and two second-year Master’s tracks: MAP and HAT
Humanities and Social Sciences (SHS) Program
The master's program, established in 2011 at the Montpellier Faculty of Medicine (UM1) by Professors Pierre Dujols and Laurent Visier, reflects recent developments in the approach to chronic diseases.
Healthcare professionals are called upon to contribute to the development of research capabilities in the areas of perceptions of disease, the social organization surrounding it, the structuring of networks, and health education. This research must draw on knowledge from the life sciences and the humanities and social sciences in order to understand “hybrid subjects.” It is now at the interface between the life sciences and the humanities that the most significant changes are taking place. Consequently, the strict distinction between the humanities and the life sciences is no longer valid. Researchers investigating the field of chronic disease must be able to address health issues in their dual biological and social dimensions.
New skills are needed to conduct high-quality research on long-term illnesses, chronic conditions, increased life expectancy, and disability.
Digital Care—Telemedicine, Telecare SD - TT
Expertise in Gerontology - Trans-Innov-Longévité - TIL
In September 2014, the University of Montpellier launched a Master 2 program titled “Expertise in Gerontology” – IDEFI-TIL (Initiative for Excellence in Innovative Training – Trans Innov Longevity).
This master’s program consists of 80% e-learning (recorded courses accessible via a platform) and 20% in-person instruction. Each enrolled student receives individual mentoring from a practicing professional in the field, with whom the student maintains close contact throughout the year. The e-learning format allows practicing professionals and individuals who live far from the university to benefit from a high-quality university education.
This Master 2 program is jointly accredited with Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris VI) and coordinated by the UNF3S (Francophone Digital University of Health and Sports Sciences).
The Trans-Innov-Longévité (TIL) project—a transdisciplinary, interuniversity system of excellence focused on the fields of longevity and independent living—is one of the winning projects of the IDEFI initiative under the National Research Agency’s (ANR) “Investissement d’Avenir” program. It models an innovative framework for interuniversity, cross-disciplinary training programs suited to both initial education and lifelong learning. It expands a system of high-quality training by leveraging national and international university networks.
TIL promotes access for new audiences to new degree programs, offering a wide variety of hybrid educational models and pathways built on multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary skills, centered around a structured yet flexible pedagogical framework. To this end, it has developed a comprehensive program that combines in-person and distance learning courses taught by university faculty who lead master’s programs and mentor and empower professionals from multidisciplinary backgrounds to serve as instructors and tutors. TIL thus relies on a new instructional design strategy that combines a database of digital teaching resources produced by university faculty and by instructor-tutors.
TIL is a master’s-level degree that prepares students for leadership roles in gerontology within the health and medical-social sectors, as well as for numerous careers related to gerontology. TIL is designed to help students acquire a wide range of skills.