HANOVER, NH – “How can we bring new, proven science into routine health care practice more quickly and effectively? What barriers must be overcome to allow change and change behaviors? How can we scale a successful intervention so that more people benefit?”
These are some of the key questions that future students will grapple with in a unique new graduate program—a Master of Science (MS) in Implementation Science (IS) to be offered by Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine in collaboration with the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, beginning in September 2025.
Learn more about our online MS in Implementation Science
Implementation science is an emerging field that draws on a rich and diverse set of established research traditions to address persistent gaps in the translation of evidence-based clinical practices into routine, real-world use.
“In other words, implementation scientists identify programs and strategies that work and work with stakeholders to get people to actually use or follow them,” explains Dr. Jeremiah Brown, Geisel Professor of Epidemiology and founding director of the Dartmouth Center for Implementation Science (DCIS).
Established last summer and housed in Geisel, DCIS serves as an academic site for IS research at Dartmouth and a hub for faculty, staff, and students to develop expertise in implementation science.
“We are very excited to launch our new MS in Implementation Science degree program,” says Duane Compton, PhD, dean of Geisel. “We recognized the need to learn how to translate evidence-based knowledge into everyday practice and found that there is a shortage of training programs to train individuals with skills in implementation science. This new degree program will allow us to meet the rapidly increasing demand for trained professionals in the field and further position Dartmouth as a national leader in implementation science.”
The new graduate program will have several unique selling points that will attract great interest, particularly among young professionals and experienced professionals seeking to gain expertise in this field.
Dartmouth’s MS in Implementation Science will be one of the first stand-alone master’s programs in implementation science to be introduced in the U.S. Currently, there are very few comprehensive training programs in IS, as most are offered as part of other master’s programs.
“It will also be the first fully online graduate program at Geisel – either over nine or 18 months,” says Brown, who notes that the program will launch concurrently with the medical school’s MS in Health Data Science. “This format gives us the flexibility to offer a world-class program taught by national experts, at least a third of whom are at other leading institutions across the country.”
“The MS in Implementation Science will be Dartmouth’s second fully online master’s degree, following the launch of Thayer’s online program earlier this year,” says Joshua Kim, PhD, associate provost for online learning strategy at Dartmouth College. “This new fully online MS in Implementation Science demonstrates Dartmouth’s commitment to providing a Dartmouth-quality education to a global audience of diverse learners.”
The program will begin with 30 graduate students, with a goal of 50 students per year within two to three years. It will also include international students. The core competencies will be designed to prepare students for leadership roles in implementation science in many fields—be it health care, academic or clinical research, public health, government education, or policy work. Registration for next year’s inaugural class is now open.
curriculum
The program’s core curriculum, which builds on Dartmouth and international experts’ expertise in implementation science, includes courses on: IS theories, models, and frameworks; implementation strategies and interventions; study design; research approaches, including community engagement and participatory research; mixed methods for qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis, and interpretation; adaptation and fidelity of interventions; and maintenance and sustainability in IS.
Advanced and emerging topics include deimplementation, global implementation science, digital health implementation, experimental IS designs, costing measures and cost-effectiveness analysis in implementation, scaling up interventions, and disseminating evidence-based interventions.
In addition to the core courses, each student completes a Capstone IMPACT project (1.0 unit) that spans the entire program – stay tuned for more details.
For more information about the new MS in Implementation Science program, visit our admissions page. Click here to request information.
