MoU between GRAAM and MAHE PSPH (Prasanna School of Public Health)

Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement (GRAAM) and MANIPAL ACADEMY OF HIGHER EDUCATION (a deemed to be university) Prasanna School of Public Health (PSPH) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on public health programs in India. The main focus of the MoU is collaboration in research, policy engagement and knowledge building programmes. In addition to these programmes, The MoU also includes exchange of faculty and experts, thereby providing an interface between academia and implementation of public health policies at the grassroots level.

The MoU was signed and exchanged between Dr Basavaraju R Shrestha, Executive Director of GRAAM and Dr Helmut Brand, Founding Director of PSPH at the G20’s ‘Delivering Democracy – Retrospect and Prospect’ conference, held at Bengaluru on 12th April 2023.

The MoU will benefit PSPH in providing practical hands-on training to the students who are enrolling to the institution’s programmes in Public Health space. PSPH will thereby provide a stage for the students to interact with the communities at the grassroots level, include their voices in the process of development in public health space, and translate evidence into policy decisions. It also strengthens GRAAM’s outreach to the communities at the grassroots, and extends the impact by enabling pragmatic research and policy-making. The faculty-exchange programme in MoU provides a forum for mutual exchange of knowledge & experiences in public health space.

The following distinguished members were present at the MoU signing and exchange event.

• Smt Ritu Khanduri, Speaker, Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly
• Dr R Balasubramaniam, Member, Capacity Building Commission, GoI and Founder, GRAAM
• Mr Kiran DM, Sous Sherpa, Civil 20
• Dr Sanjay Pattanshetty, Head of Department of Global Health Governance, PSPH
• Dr Ananya Samajdar, Deputy Director Research, GRAAM