UC Global Health Attracts NIH Funds to Train Next Generation of Global Health Researchers

The UC Global Health Institute has received one of five, $4 million grants from the Fogarty International Center to support 50 to 60 new fellows in global health research over the next five years, starting September 2012.

Craig Cohen, MD, MPH

Craig Cohen, MD, MPH

For the UC Global Health Institute, which is headquartered at UCSF, this is an important pipeline for developing the next generation of global health research leaders, including new faculty at the University of California. Since its launch in 2009, the institute has been able to fund only a few fellows per year, which were focused on the institute’s Center of Expertise in Women’s Health and Empowerment.

These grants, known as the UCGHI GloCal Health Fellowship, will create a consistent funding source for up to 12 early-career researchers each year across the spectrum of global health research, from medicine and public health to agriculture and veterinary medicine, according to UCSF professor Craig Cohen, MD, MPH, co-director of the institute’s Center of Expertise in Women’s Health & Empowerment, who leads this new grant along with Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, chief of the UC San Diego Division of Global Public Health.

Fellows will have access to 230 faculty members as mentors from global health programs at UCSF, UC San Diego, UCLA and UC Davis, with opportunities for an 11-month intensive research program in one of 24 collaborating institutions across 14 nations and five continents. Candidates include junior faculty to supplement current career development, UC post-doctoral fellows, low- and middle-income country fellows and UC doctoral/professional students.

The Fogarty center, which is the international arm of the National Institutes of Health, announced April 4 that it is providing $20 million to five consortiums — led by UC Berkeley, UC Global Health, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, the University of Washington Seattle, and Vanderbilt University — to provide early-career research experiences in a developing country for physicians, veterinarians, dentists and other scientists.

Related Links:

UC Global Health announcement 

National Institutes of Health release 

UC Berkeley news release 

For more details about the UCGHI GloCal Health Fellowship, including application guidelines