An Institutional Framework to Promote Global Health Research & Training

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Millennium Development Goals represent a global compact to create substantive change in the health and well-being of the world's population by the year 2015. The University of Michigan is particularly well placed to stimulate innovation and to recruit and prepare the next generation of health scientists and professionals to address critical global health needs. We have recently established two innovative programs-the School of Public Health's Interdisciplinary Concentration in Global Health and the School of Medicine's Global REACH program-that foster international health research and training within their respective units. Building on these programs, on the infrastructure of our five Fogarty International Center research training programs, and on three unique undergraduate programs, we propose creating a university-wide framework, the University of Michigan Global Health Research and Training Initiative to promote critical and innovative multidisciplinary global health scholarship by expanding undergraduate programs, integrating graduate programs, supporting faculty research initiatives, and maximizing administrative efficiency. The overall goal is to more effectively support our health research and training partnerships with institutions in low- and middle-income countries, to foster innovative research collaborations among faculty, and maximize opportunities for students to engage in global health research. This proposal is a collaboration of the Schools of Public Health, Medicine, Nursing, Public Policy, and the College of Literature, Sciences and Arts with linkages to several other programs on campus. Specifically, we propose to 1) support scholarship at the forefront of global health research through interdisciplinary symposia and provision of faculty seed grants, 2) develop targeted new course offerings, support international research internships and define curricular programs for undergraduate students, 3) increase interdisciplinary collaboration in graduate curricular offerings and research programs across the university and support graduate research internships, pre-dissertation research travel and clinical research rotations, and 4) develop necessary infrastructure, including a website and faculty and internship databases. This enhancement, expansion, and integration of existing programs will catalyze research and engage the next generation of scientists in global health.