The University of California recently received a $4 million grant to fund planning for the proposed UC School of Global Health, taking a step toward creating the university's first system-wide school.

The grant was announced yesterday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and will cover initial stages of planning, including creating a business proposal, hiring three full-time staff and covering faculty costs of travel, said Ellen Switkes, planning coordinator for the school.

The school, which would feature a themed center on at least five campuses, is slated to take a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle global health problems such as emerging diseases and food and water insecurity. University administrators plan to fund the school through grants from private corporations, particularly biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

If approved by the UC Board of Regents, the school should open in summer 2011, said former UC San Francisco Chancellor Haile T. Debas, who initiated the school along with Richard Feachem, a UC Berkeley professor in the School of Public Health.

"It is unique because, unlike traditional schools, it is not one discipline," Debas said. "It is truly interdisciplinary and it is action-oriented-so unlike the traditional school that does education, research and publication, this one aims to take that a step further and implement policies and projects."

Switkes said workshops have been held on all of the UC campuses, starting with UC Berkeley, to measure the level of interest and to brainstorm themes for each campus center.

Many of the international issues the school will focus on also trouble California and the U.S., she added.

"Third World issues are not just Third World," she said. "Global health is really the right word-some of these problems are right here at home."

But Stephen Shortell, who is dean of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and has been working with Debas to plan the school's structure, said he was concerned the school might overlap with work already done on the UC Berkeley campus and could divert needed faculty from other programs.

Shortell also stressed the importance of balancing the size of the endeavor with the cost.

"There's real opportunity here, but it has to be structured in a way that is affordable and can last and sustain over time," he said.

The idea for the school has been in the works since 2005, and was presented to the regents in September. The main concern then was funding such a high-investment project, especially in light of the state's turbulent economy.

"I would encourage you to try to explain how you plan to put the bricks and mortars together, how you run this and how you pay for it," Regents Chairman Richard Blum said to Debas and Feachem at the time.

Now, with California in a state of fiscal emergency, funding is more of a pressing concern than ever, Switkes said. Although the grant will fund planning, the expected start-up cost for the school, which has yet to be finalized, will be much more significant.

"The number is going to be big," said Chuck Smukler, director of administration for UC San Francisco's Global Health Sciences, which is hosting the school's planning office. "We hope to have six different centers-it's not going to be inexpensive."

He added that student interest and enthusiasm surrounding global health reinforced the school's potential.

"There are times when you need to think beyond the horizon and think big," Smukler said.

Tags: GRANT, UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH