The WHO collaborating centres are institutions such as research institutes, parts of universities or academies, which the Director-General designates to carry out activities in support of the Organization’s programmes.

Currently, there are over 800 WHO collaborating centres in 90 member states working with WHO on areas such as nursing, occupational health, communicable diseases, nutrition, mental health, chronic diseases and health technologies.

UWC's Faculty of Dentistry was first designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Oral Health on 1 November 1994 and that designation remains in place almost three decades on.

The Terms of Reference for the centre are:

1. To support WHO in providing technical assistance to build capacity for oral health promotion, oral disease prevention and control. 
2. To inform WHO’s work towards strengthening health system capacity through availability and distribution of affordable essential medical consumables. 
3. To support WHO monitoring and evaluation of the Regional Oral Health Strategy 2016-2025. 

These are carried out via the following subjects:

• Oral health 
• Health systems research & development 
• Informatics and Telemedicine 

Meanwhile the types of activity include Research; Training and education  and Product development (guidelines; manual; methodologies; etc.).