About Global REACH

Joseph Kolars with UMMS students and partners in Uganda, 2018

Founded at the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) in 2001, Global REACH is a key partner to our UMMS faculty members, learners, and departments working to engage with international collaborators to advance health, research, and education. By engaging partners around the globe, not only do we extend Michigan Medicine to improve health in other (often low-resource) settings, we also generate scholarship to improve healthcare delivery here at home. Our work complements the medical school’s education-driven mission as well as Michigan Medicine’s broader mission to “advance health to serve Michigan and the world.

To be the leading US academic unit in preparing the human capital to establish sustainable solutions that advance health and reduce disparities, particularly among the underserved worldwide.

To facilitate health research, education, and collaboration among Michigan Medicine learners and faculty with our global partners to reduce health disparities for the benefit of communities worldwide.

  1. To enable students, trainees and faculty to develop components of their career that address sustainable approaches to improving global health.
  2. To create partnerships that allow our medical school community to collaborate synergistically to improve global health.
  3. To advance education and research in global health, particularly on the science of collaboration.
  4. To cultivate a community of educators and scholars committed to improvements in global health.
  5. To demonstrate the value of global health initiatives to the medical school, university, and the communities we serve.

REACH = Research, Education, and Collaboration in Health

Research is central to the core mission of Michigan Medicine. Discoveries can come from anywhere and have an impact everywhere. Global REACH helps connect our U-M researchers with partner investigators across the world in order to collaborate on projects that transcend language, culture, and geography.

We connect UMMS students with meaningful international educational experiences that offer important insights and leave lasting impressions regardless of what area of medicine they ultimately pursue - or where they choose to pursue it.

International collaboration should be a two-way street benefiting our own institution as well as our partners abroad. That philosophy informs the activities we support at Global REACH, whether fostering 1:1 collaborations between like-minded researchers in different countries or building multi-faceted institutional partnerships that span many activities and disciplines.