New DentAlliance Consists of 4 of the World’s Premier Dental Schools

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Adams School of Dentistry; King’s College London’s Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences; National University of Singapore Faculty of Dentistry; and the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Dental School in Australia are establishing the DentAlliance to advance and transform research, education and practice in dentistry and the oral and craniofacial health sciences.

The initial five-year agreement provides the structure for the creation of the DentAlliance partnership and builds upon collaborations and exchanges between the institutions. The partners will collaborate globally to transform education and curriculum development, to pursue new and transformative research and discovery initiatives, and to enhance professional practice in dentistry and the oral and craniofacial health sciences.

According to the UNC at Chapel Hill Adams School of Dentistry, the partner schools will work together to inspire and train future leaders and practitioners of the profession on a global stage, creating new and transformative training, development and exchange opportunities and for students and employees.

In celebration of the launch, a virtual event featuring all partners took place on Oct. 23. A recording of the event is available for viewing on Zoom.

Mike Curtis, executive dean of the King’s College London’s Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, says lessons learned these last several months during a pandemic have shown just how valuable virtual education education platforms have become. Experiences over the last year have demonstrated how it is entirely possible to conduct truly meaningful and productive collaboration and teaching in a virtual format, he says.

Finbarr Allen, dean of the National University of Singapore Faculty of Dentistry, adds, “The partnership will allow some of the world’s most prestigious dental schools to draw on each other’s strengths to bring about better clinical care, high impact research and education to nurture the future generations of oral health professionals.”

Additionally, the DentAlliance says the partnership allows it to re-imagine how it can teach the dental and oral health students and professional clinicians in a global way. Collaboration is the best way to advance this understanding through research but also provide students and research students with the opportunity to be taught by recognized world-leading experts in their field and for each school to learn from each other to tackle the education and research challenges that lie ahead with a shared approach and shared outcomes.