Igor Rudan - Biography#

Igor Rudan is Chair in International Health and Molecular Medicine and Joint Director of the Centre for Global Health and the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is both Croatian and UK citizen.

He graduated from the University of Zagreb Medical School, Croatia, in 1995. He obtained two masters degrees and two PhD degrees - in Anthropology (1997), Epidemiology (1999); Public Health (1998) and Genetic Epidemiology (2005).

He published more than 550 research papers and 10 books/monographs, which have received more than 180,000 citations to date. In 2007, he was the researcher with the greatest increase in the number of citations in the world within his field, according to the ISI/Thomson Reuters. From 2015-2021 he was included among the ISI/Thomson Reuters "World's Most Influential Scientific Minds / Highly Cited Researchers".

He has led 29 research grants totalling more than GBP 30 million. He founded the Croatian Biobank “10001 Dalmatians” (in 2001) in isolated populations of Croatian islands in Dalmatia region, which contributed to the discovery of biomedical role for more than 2,000 human genes to date.

In his international health efforts to reduce global child mortality, he served as a consultant of the World Health Organization, UNICEF, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The World Bank, Save the Children, and others. He developed the "CHNRI" methodology (in 2007) and “EQUIST” tool (in 2012) that have been widely used by international agencies to prioritise investments in global health research and development.

He founded or co-founded Croatian Centre for Global Health at the University of Split, Croatia (in 2008), Edinburgh University Global Health Society (2011), Journal of Global Health (in 2011), WHO's Collaborating Centre in Edinburgh (in 2013), Centre for Global Health at the The Usher Institute (in 2015) and the International Society of Global Health (in 2019).

He has been awarded >30 national and international research awards and professional recognitions (see above). In 2017, he completed a documentary series "Survival: The Story of Global Health" which was broadcasted at the Croatian National TV and seen by more than 1 million people, and more than 100,000 on YouTube. He published four No. 1 national bestsellers in popular science in Croatia: "The Exact Colour of the Sky" (2017), "Evil Air" (2018), "In the Land of Clans"(2019) and "Awaiting Fires" (2020).