To prepare young scientists from malaria endemic areas for fulfilling roles such as project coordinators, managers, administrators, science communicators, decision makers and, most important, trustable references for the political authorities of their home countries. To build up their capability of inserting malaria research and control within a macro-economical scenario guaranteeing sustainability and contributing to the overall human development.

At the end of the 3 years course, the PhD candidates should have acquired:

• a solid and broad ‘malaria culture’ and deep professional competence in specific fields;
• essential knowledge in social sciences relevant to health delivery and human development, particularly in sociology, economics, medical anthropology, law and human rights and ethics;
• general and transferable skills i.e. communication skills, organizational capabilities, working in a team, proposal writing, fund raising; and should have demonstrated the capability to develop, perform and evaluate an original research project.

• The Programme is open to candidates with bio-medical as well as social sciences background.
• PhD candidates dedicate 70% of their time to their thesis project and 30% to training in disciplinary, general and transferable skills.
• Intense training is offered to candidates yearly during a period of 2 months. This includes the organisation of a multidisciplinary workshop focusing on a major malaria control strategy in the view of human development based on a panel of experts mainly from endemic countries (2008: drug and treatments for malaria control; 2009: vector control).
• Active involvement of PhD trainees in the planning and evaluation of training activities.
• Personalized training curriculum.
• Training period of at least 6 months in an endemic country, by candidates who are based in an European institution for their thesis project.
• Co-mentorship by a scientist representative of the candidates home country to prepare his/her future integration into the national health structure.

The PhD Programme is built on a network of research and training institutions based in Italy, endemic countries and other European countries. The Programme was launched by the coordinating institution the University of Camerino (UNICAM), Italy in 2008. Each participating institution contributes to the Programme by making available experts as facilitators and as mentors for PhD candidates and by hosting candidates in their facilities for research and for disciplinary and methodological skill training.

2007/8 call: applications received 42, qualified candidates 22, enrolled candidates 7 (+1 in 2007)

2009/10 call: applications received 39, qualified candidates 11, enrolled 3.

The Programme took off in 2008 with the support of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, the University of Camerino and the Italian Malaria Network.