A comprehensive archive of public seminars is available online on the website of the International Institute for Society and Health of University College, London. The seminars cover a broad range of topics which Alma Mata members will find interesting and useful.

Topics have included:

Risk, Resilience and Social Integration
Conflict Medicine: A Neglected Challenge
Social Inequalities in Health - New Evidence and Policy Implications

For the first time, researchers in developing countries will be able to apply for European funding under nearly the same terms as European researchers, as opposed to a limited amount of funding for earmarked projects.

The first round of calls for the European Union's US$69 billion Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) will be announced on 22 December.

"By facilitating international cooperation we aim to create a science programme that meets real social and economic needs, both in the European Union (EU) and worldwide," said Antonia Mochan, spokeswoman for Janez Potočnik, the European Commissioner for science and research.

These interviews relay the experiences civil society partners who tell their stories of the use of research-based evidence in development policy. A key part of the Research and Policy in Development Programme's work is to make practical tools and experience available. Short interviews have been conducted and filmed with policy makers, practitioners and CSO staff and members to use on project websites and in presentations.

The interviews are designed to elicit personal experiences of the use of research-based evidence in development policy, focusing on the following issues:

§ What is your experience of using research-based evidence to influence development policy?

Education and Training: Grants and Funding Directory of Grants and Fellowships in the Global Health Sciences

Website: http://www.fic.nih.gov/funding/directory_fellowships.htm

A comprehensive compilation of international funding opportunities in biomedical and behavioral research published by the Fogarty International Center,
part of the National Institutes of Health. NIH Publication 06-3027, February 2006

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Please find attached the latest Alma Mata Newsletter.

Gaz Lewis looks at the how the media impact on recognition of global health problems, how can we manage this important vehicle for health promotion?

Adam Musgrove, who works for Practical Action, raises issues surrounding indoor smoke, a large course of morbidity and mortality in the less developed world.

We round up with an article covering the Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene and the latest news form Medact and Medsin.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Sudden changes in UK immigration law, already in the news for their impact on overseas doctors, have also forced hundreds of students at UK medical schools to reevaluate their career plans. With immediate effect from April 3rd 2006 all doctors who are not residents of EEA countries have only been able to apply for training posts if their potential employer can prove that there are no EEA doctors available for that post. Importantly, this ruling also affects doctors from overseas who graduated from one of the UK's 31 medical schools and completed the 2 year foundation programme.

Stigma and global health: developing a research agenda
The Lancet, Current Issue, Volume 367, Number 9509, 11 February 2006

Lancet: (registration is free): http://www.lancet.com/journal

Keusch GT, Wilentz J, Kleinman A pages 525-527
Full Text: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067360668183X/fulltext

“…..Stigma is a pervasive influence on disease and responses of nations, communities, families, and individuals to illness. Too little research has been done in recent years to better understand the pathogenesis and implications of stigma, how beliefs are generated, perpetuated, and translated into behaviours, and the cost of stigma to individuals, families, communities, and nations. The sense that legislation and education against stigma is sufficient may explain the shortage of interest in research in this field…..”

Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) UK is looking for both medical and non-medical volunteers to form a team to work on their exciting new project, Project: London, their first UK healthcare project. It will involve helping vulnerable people in east London to access to primary healthcare. They're running a series of briefing sessions once every two months to give prospective volunteers like you more information.

The next meeting is on the 16th February at 6 p.m.

See the attached leaflet for venue details and the timetable for the evening.

Aska Leslie
Postgraduate Education Editor

www.openDemocracy.net 1

Ian Hodgson
11 January 2006

South Africa’s health and public policy towards people infected by HIV is surrounded by a political firestorm –
with the German-born nutritionist Matthias Rath at its heart. Ian Hodgson explains.

HIV has always been more than simply a virus:
wherever it strikes there is controversy, panic and
confusion. In 2005, heated debate around aid
allocation policy, and the morality of certain HIV
prevention strategies were prominent in the discourse.
As always, access to Aids treatments was also high on
many agendas, not least because December 2005

Date: Wednesday, 8th February 2006
Time: 6 p.m.
Venue: Darwin Biochemistry Lecture Theatre, UCL, Gower Street WC1E 6BT

This free event, organised jointly by the Alma Mata Global Health Graduate Network and the Friends of Treatment Action Campaign, showcased the work of researchers in the field of HIV/AIDS.

Our aim was to bring professionals, graduates and students interested in Global Health issues together, in order to illustrate and facilitate discussion on how exciting and relevant research can be, its applications to the 'real world' and how it can interplay with activism.