Sophie Witter

Sophie Witter is a health economist with a substantial reputation in her field of international health financing. She is widely sought-after as an adviser to governments and international organisations on pro-poor reforms to health financing systems. Crossing the policy/research divide, she is a well-respected academic, who has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals in her field, as well as numerous books, book chapters (in French as well as English), policy briefs, reports and presentations.

Sophie has worked in international health for nearly 30 years in Asia, Africa and transitional economies. She has exceptional research leadership, mixed methods research experience, analytical and writing skills, as well as extensive experience of teaching, technical advice, research uptake, and management. Her textbooks on health economics in developing and transitional economies are still used as key references for practitioners, while her writings on equity and health financing have contributed to a paradigm shift in the international debate about ‘cost-sharing’ for basic health care in low-income settings. Her specialist area is health policy, finance and systems in low and middle-income countries, including fragile and conflict-affected settings.

Sophie holds the post of Professor of International Health Financing and Health Systems at the Institute for Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. She is also co-Research Director of the ReBUILD research consortium, which is focussing on health systems in post-conflict countries (DFID, 2011-2019). In addition, Sophie is Deputy Director of the NIHR Research Unit on Health in Fragility at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh (2017-21); Co-Investigator of  VAPAR (Using verbal autopsy with participatory action research in South Africa, 2017-22); Co-Principal Investigator of Results4TB (Designing and evaluating incentives for TB providers in Georgia, 2017-21); and Co-Investigator of the Resilience project (Understanding and modelling resilient health systems for Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria, 2016-18).

Sophie undertakes technical advisory work, independently and as an Oxford Policy Management Associate. Current and recent examples include: leading a study on UHC and equity for the OECD; acting as principal adviser to a Gates Foundation study of learning for action across health systems; leading a labour market study in Guinea for the World Bank; developing guidelines for the WHO on health financing in fragile states; and developing a transition plan for Ghana in moving away from dependent on donor support in health (funded by DFID).

In addition to research and technical advice, Sophie supervises PhD students and teaches periodically on short courses and Masters, by invitation, as well as acting as external examiner for theses.