For nearly two years now, the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) and Fudan University in Shanghai have been building a relationship, finding common interests and expertise, and exploring opportunities for partnership. Professors and administrators from Fudan came to Duke to learn about our global health courses and research initiatives. Duke faculty also visited Fudan, which is one of the top universities in China, and met with faculty and administrators, particularly those working at the Global Health Center in the Fudan School of Public Health. Today, we solidified our partnership with a signature and a hand shake and agreed on a number of areas in which we would collaborate over the next few years.
Effective partnerships like the ones we’ve now established with Fudan, Peking and Wuhan Universities cannot be rushed. They involve a mutual understanding of one another’s goals and a search for areas of cooperation that benefit both institutions.
Federal funding programs like the Framework Program for Global Health from the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center have jumpstarted many of our international partnerships. DGHI and Fudan both received Global Health Framework grants in 2008. These funds have allowed international collaborations to develop and flourish, with a level playing field.
Fudan’s vision for the partnership is to establish and grow its Center for Global Health into a university-wide institute. This includes not only medicine but other disciplines and fields like sociology, economics, social work and law, and would allow it to approach global health challenges using a multi-disciplinary approach. That’s something we at Duke know a lot about. Likewise, DGHI has and will learn a great deal from faculty at Fudan, particularly as we strengthen and build our global health research and education programs.
Agreements like the one we signed today are the starting points for a long, mutually-beneficial partnership that will ultimately improve and expand opportunities for Duke faculty and students for years to come.
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Merson is director of the Duke Global Health Institute and interim vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs. He is traveling with President Brodhead and today signed a memorandum of understanding with leaders of Fudan University to develop faculty and student exchanges and research collaborations between the two schools.
See original post on the Summer 2011 Global Outreach Blog.
