Europubhealth

Integration, collaboration and cultural diversity for public health - a means to rising standards and striving for European excellence

The Department of International Health of the UM Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences is a partner in the Erasmus Mundus ‘Europubhealth’ programme. This is a two-year master's programme in public health, delivered by six European universities, leading to a recognised double master's degree. The six renowned European universities that make the consortium that offers 'Europubhealth', are:

• l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (France)
• l’Université de Rennes 1 (France)
• the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow (Poland)
• la Escuela Andaluza de Salud Pública in collaboration with la Universidad de Granada (Spain)
•  the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom)
• Maastricht University (the Netherlands)

In line with the EU strategy, the consortium has set up the Europubhealth master's programme, which is collaborative and integrated international endeavour. It draws on the wealth of European diversity, not only in terms of organisation and delivery but also in terms of content mirroring the European Union public health strategy. The programme produces experienced and culturally sensitive public health professionals within Europe and all over the world, thus tackling the health workforce crisis and ensuring that the aims of the European Union find expression and are translated from policy into evidence-based, cost-effective public health practice.

The philosophy of the Erasmus Mundus scheme is to bring together students and scholars coming from various countries  having very different but complementary profiles including clinical health professionals  (doctors, nurses, pharmacists...) or social sciences backgrounds (sociology, economics, psychology, anthropology, political science and law).

'Europubhealth' enjoys the growing number of high-quality applications  from all over the world (mainly Asia, South-America, Africa and Europe). The programme has made a substantial contribution to the development of high-quality human resources in Europe and partner countries.

The objective of 'Europubhealth' is to train future leaders and decision makers in public health, providing them among others with interdisciplinary and cultural competences to plan, develop, implement and evaluate essential public health functions at the local, national and global level. Special attention is given to providing students with the opportunity to develop cross-cutting interdisciplinary competences and skills related to intercultural communication, programme planning, leadership, project management and team work. It also brings into focus newly emerging fields such as disaster management, emergent diseases or threats, the health impacts of climate change and globalisation.

'Europubhealth' also provides a platform for horizontal synergy among consortium members with respect to academic and research standards. The dissertation represents a key area of integrative pedagogical practice, based on the principle of joint working across institutions the programme provides a pathway towards a Master of Public Health (MPH), but with a distinct European added value.

If you want to learn more, please contact dr Katarzyna Czabanowska (academic coordinator: kasia.czabanowska@maastrichtuniversity.nl) or vist http://www.europubhealth.org. You can also have a look at the Europubhealth leaflet.pdf.