Continuous Learning

UC San Francisco aims to be a destination for learners across the community – faculty, staff, students and trainees – a place where those who seek to grow their knowledge and improve their skills have the opportunity to succeed in pursuit of our collective mission of advancing health worldwide.

Priority Statement

UCSF aspires to remain at the top for education, innovation and learning, continually evolving to ensure we will always be a destination for premier education and educators. We aspire to be an environment that fosters inquiry and lifelong learning for all who work and study here.

Objectives

• Leverage advances in neuroscience, information technology and educational sciences to design cutting-edge educational activities for health care professionals and researchers.
• Become the destination institution for novel, state-of-the-art educational programs that rapidly adapt to scientific breakthroughs and emerging societal needs to ensure that our learners and graduates are prepared to become leaders in their fields.
• Promote continuous learning and professional development for all who train and work here, for the duration of their careers.

Equity and Inclusion

Diversity is a defining feature of UC San Francisco and a source of strength that is critical to our success. Our differences – of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, socioeconomic status, abilities, experience and more – enhance our ability to achieve our core missions of research, teaching, patient care and public service. We are committed to enhancing an environment that includes, celebrates and serves our diverse communities.

Priority Statement

UCSF will champion diversity, equity and inclusion as core to our mission and will nurture and grow a culture in which everyone from all backgrounds is welcomed, supported, respected and valued.

Objectives

• Become known nationally as a destination for the brightest and most creative individuals with a diversity of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.
• Build upon and enrich our diverse culture, focusing on addressing current weaknesses and deficiencies, with the same investment, innovation and rigor that we approach other efforts at UCSF.
• Enhance the personal, curricular and professional development and organizational strategies needed to support and sustain a diverse and inclusive culture, striving to provide equal opportunity at all levels.
• Establish metrics for UCSF’s culture of equity and inclusion and measure, evaluate and report on outcomes on an annual basis to ensure accountability and transparency
• Foster an ongoing dialogue between our campus and the Bay Area community about issues of equity, inclusion, disparities and social justice.

Precision Medicine

Precision medicine aims to collect, connect, and apply vast amounts of scientific research data and information about our health – from the molecular understanding of disease to clinical, environmental, socioeconomic and mobile lifestyle data – to understand why individuals respond differently to treatments and therapies, and help guide more precise and predictive medicine worldwide.

Priority Statement

Making precision medicine a reality will take a sustained, collaborative effort by scientists, clinicians, health systems, industry, governments, insurers, patients and healthy individuals.

UC San Francisco’s vision is to be a leader in conceptualizing and implementing precision medicine approaches, convening these stakeholders, and creating a research matrix that yields insights into the determinants of health and disease.

The matrix contains seven overlapping and intersecting elements:

Basic Discovery – Defining and understanding fundamental biological processes

Clinical Discovery – Determining approaches to diagnosis and treatment, therapeutic development and disease prevention

Behavioral/Social Discovery – Uncovering the roles of behavioral, social and environmental factors in health, disease, and clinical outcomes

‘Omics Research – Collecting, analyzing and interpreting different types of molecular information, such as the genome, microbiome and metabolome

Digital Health – Motivating and evaluating new technologies and devices for sensing, recording and reporting health and disease information

Computational Health – Establishing computational tools, infrastructure and capacity for continuous collection and integration of vast amounts of diverse data relevant to biological processes, health and disease

Knowledge Network – Deriving connections, correlations and patterns within and between different types (“layers”) of information in ways that establish evidence-based understanding of health and disease mechanisms, drive new research, and approach prevention, diagnosis, treatments and cures that are precise for each individual.

Objectives

• Take the lead to uncover and define the full potential of massive data and information about patients, partnering with others who have the expertise and tools to develop solutions to problems in health care and research.
• Establish and build dynamic connections between our fundamental discovery research and clinical care to develop precision care at all stages of life that is based on an understanding of molecular, social and environmental determinates of health and disease.
• Advance precision medicine by serving as both convener and leader to bring key parties and stakeholders, including payers (private and public), patient-citizens, researchers, regulators and potential external partners, to the table to address key challenges.
• Embed precision medicine approaches into the curriculum of our educational programs.

Learn more about Precision Medicine at UCSF

Transformative Partnerships

UC San Francisco partners with entities across sectors- private, public, not for profit, and our community to accelerate our mission of advancing health worldwide. External partnerships bring valuable expertise, perspective and resources to UCSF. Such alliances also bring value-add to our partners, which look to collaborate with UCSF scientists and innovators such that we can collectively make an impact on societal well-being.

Priority Statement

UCSF will convene and engage in cross-sector partnerships in creative, innovative ways that ensure we remain at the forefront of research, education and patient care. UCSF aspires to be a top notch partner for private industry and an anchor institution for our neighboring communities.

Objectives

• Form transformative partnerships that help us accomplish something beyond what we’ve done before, or improve in an area in which we are not currently a leader due to gaps in knowledge or skills inside the University.
• Work more broadly and collaboratively across sectors and industries to identify solutions to problems and challenges within health, health care and the health sciences.
• Establish UCSF as a convener and leader in the areas of health science, health and health care innovation, with diverse and cross sector partners, focusing on its impact in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Establish UCSF as a desirable partner for private industry and community-based partners.