Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) is an internationally recognised, integrated approach to primary health care that brings health and other professionals, organisations and people together in defined geographical areas to identify and respond systematically to health needs.  COPC originated in South Africa about seven decades ago, was adopted as the model of primary health care delivery and is currently practiced in many parts of the world.

The UP COPC Research Unit was conceptualised as a research environment to explore and innovate the practices and processes of doing ICT enabled COPC in the re-engineering of primary health care in site specific localities.  It is a complex, layered and multi-partner health research-learning-service engagement that mobilizes skills and expertise across all sectors around a common vision of doing primary care using the best available knowledge and practice.