The Association of Commonwealth Universities is pleased to announce that the next ACU Summer School will be held at the University of Mauritius from 14-21 July 2019.

The theme of the 2019 Summer School is ‘Public Health: from a Small Island State to the Global Community’. The programme, led by University of Mauritius subject specialists, will focus on four major components of public health namely:

• Education, detection, prevention and control of disease outbreak, community centred approaches
• Research in health/medicine
• Innovation in health: e-health and big data
• Health economics, policies and civil society

Students will learn from site visits to Mauritian hospitals and laboratories, will work together on a challenging group project, share their experiences of public health challenges in their home countries, and will be able to immerse themselves in Mauritian culture.

The programme is a mix of lectures, group projects, visits to research labs, companies and organisations related to health matters, excursions, social networking and a Mauritian touch with an introduction to yoga. It follows 2018’s enormously successful and well-received summer school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on the topic of Designing and creating sustainable communities.

The University of Mauritius’ Vice-Chancellor Professor Dhanjay Jhurry said:

‘It is with immense pleasure that we look forward to hosting the 9th ACU Summer School at the University of Mauritius on 14 to 21 July 2019 in close collaboration with the ACU Secretariat. We have chosen as theme for the Summer School ‘Public Health: from a Small Island State to the Global Community’.

Public Health, which is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities, is an important concern of the commonwealth. The provision of adequate health care to citizens remains a problem for many commonwealth countries that lack adequate resourcing and physical infrastructure to facilitate delivery.’

The ACU’s Secretary General, Dr Joanna Newman, added:

‘We are delighted to be working with the University of Mauritius on the planning and delivery of next year’s summer school. The competition was fierce this year with high-quality proposals from across our network but the University of Mauritius’ proposal really stood out.

‘Meeting the diverse health needs of populations across the Commonwealth is critical to underpinning the success of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. I am therefore looking forward to the contribution that the students and academics involved with the ACU Summer School 2019 will make in exploring how we can strengthen public health through research, education and innovation’

Applications for the 2019 School will open in November 2018. The event is open to postgraduates and final-year undergraduates from universities in Commonwealth countries, and a number of travel bursaries will be available for students from ACU member institutions who have not previously travelled outside their home region. If you would like to be notified once applications open, please email [email protected]

Information on past summer schools can be found on the ACU website: https://www.acu.ac.uk/events/commonwealth-summer-school/