Mexico City, 10 May 2021. - In order to promote essential epidemiological tools for public health practice, Banco Santander, through Santander Universities, formed a partnership with Johns Hopkins University and Coursera, a leading online education platform, to create the Santander Scholarships Studies | Epidemiology – Johns Hopkins University – UNAM programme.

The aim of the seven-week programme is to promote basic epidemiological tools for measuring population health, evaluating interventions, collecting and analysing data, and investigating outbreaks and epidemics. Two hundred scholarships will be awarded, and the call for applications is aimed at university students who have completed more than 50% of their academic credits at undergraduate level or who are currently undertaking postgraduate studies, recent graduates and professors in the Area of Medicine and Health Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

"The partnership for these 200 scholarships is particularly significant because it is aimed at UNAM's health sciences community at a time when public health practice needs to be promoted, and it reflects Santander's efforts to diversify our scholarship programmes in such important fields as medicine. Santander is honoured to be able to work together with Johns Hopkins University, one of the most recognised and prestigious universities in the US, and to open the door to this university for UNAM students, in order to provide tools for our future epidemiologists", said Arturo Cherbowski Lask, Executive Director of Santander Universities and Senior Executive Vice President of Universia Mexico.

The specialisation course "Epidemiology in Public Health Practice", for which the scholarships are made available, provides a wide range of exercises, including reflection, analysis, calculation, application, mapping and evaluation to solve real problems faced by epidemiologists. Additionally, the beneficiaries will have access to a free course on "COVID-19 contact tracing". The call for applications is open until 16 May on the Santander Scholarships website, and the results will be available from 31 May 2021.