The School of Health & Social Care

PhD student wins £4,995 bursary from Santander

Page published 21 October 2011

BU PhD student awarded one of five travel bursaries offered by Santander.

A PhD student at Bournemouth University has won a travel bursary from Santander for £4995.

The money will be used for travel and living expenses, spending 5 weeks this winter and 5 weeks in winter 2012 at the University of Barcelona and the Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy.

Sheetal Sharma is evaluating health promotion in Nepal for her PhD study, she will use the bursary to travel and work with the University of Buenos Aires, Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy (Buenos Aires) Barcelona University and BU. Both universities of Buenos Aires and Barcelona belong to the Santander overseas network, as it calls universities “the backbone of transformation”

Santander Universities Global Division has more than 960 universities from America, Asia and Europe abd gives away 600 million euros to finance university projects and partnership agreements with universities each year, as well as creating Universia which is the biggest university network in the world.

Sheetal’s research looks to better understand the constraints of care-seeking behaviour in maternal health and will determine the ways to improve wellbeing through decrease in maternal, neonatal and infant mortality rates and diseases relating to reproductive and sexual health practices and assist in attaining the Millennium Development Goal 5.

Only 5 Santander bursaries of up to £5000 are awarded per year which aims to reward the most academically gifted students from countries that are supported by the Santander Universidades scheme.