Research expertise

Gorik Ooms is a distinguished human rights lawyer and scholar with a primary focus on the right to health. In September 2024, he was appointed as professor of international health policy and head of the Unit of Health Policy in the Department of Public Health of the Institute of Tropical Medicine.

Ooms graduated with a Licentiate in Law from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1989. His early career was marked by significant contributions to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where he served in various roles, including as Executive Director of MSF Belgium/Operational Centre Brussels from August 2004 to 2008. In 2008, he earned a PhD from the University of Ghent with a thesis titled “The Right to Health and the Sustainability of Healthcare: Why a New Global Health Aid Paradigm is Needed.” Following a postdoc position at ITM Antwerp and a year as a global justice fellow at Yale University, he joined the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) as a professor of global health law and governance.

Ooms is internationally recognised as a thought leader on the right to health and global health equity. His advisory roles have included work with the World Health Organization on universal health coverage and the right to health, UNAIDS on HIV and human rights, and the United Nations Development Programme on access to medicines and the right to health, among others. He served on the advisory committee to the board of Friends of the Global Fund Europe and has been a member of the Lancet and University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health and the Lancet and O’Neill Institute of Georgetown University Commission on Global Health and the Law. Additionally, he convened the Lancet Commission on synergies between universal health coverage, health security, and health promotion.

Ooms’ current research is focused on international health policies, with a particular interest in policies that entail international financing, and how they interact at national level – synergetic or not.