Lessons learned in a European-Latin American collaboration for developing postgraduate education in public health

Background: New funding from the European Union (EU) allowed the collaborative development of postgraduate education in public health between five countries in South America and Europe. Methods: A planning meeting, two workshops, a final meeting and the use of e-mail and fares for discussing curricula were employed. Results: One new master of public health in Argentina has begun, plans for new masters in Chile have been developed, A new collaborative module using the Internet was started and is now in its third year, new European plans for distance learning are being developed. Possibilities for collaborative research have been identified and those involved developed a broader horizon and international contacts, The planned grant from the EU was 72,040 Euros, Staff time spent administering the project was much greater than time spent discussing curricula. This is the only publication. Conclusion: Although the aims were achieved, the opportunity costs were great, as methods of assessing European research do not value such work highly and the administrative burden of small EU grants is high. Once a network is established greater efforts should be put into electronic communication, but European programmes currently do not fund such 'remote' support.