Posted on September 20, 2012

Atlantic Philanthropies Awards $20 Million to University of California, San Francisco

The University of California, San Francisco has announced a $20 million gift from businessman and philanthropist Charles "Chuck" Feeney to support construction of a global health research and education building.

Made through Atlantic Philanthropies, a private foundation established by Feeney in 1982, the gift boosts to $292 million the amount Atlantic has awarded to UCSF. It will be used to build a facility at the university's Mission Bay campus that will house the five-year-old Global Health Sciences master's program and provide space for clinical faculty working in hospitals located across the street from the planned site as well as UCSF's chancellor and several academic research units that currently lease space off-campus. Construction on the building, the fourth major UCSF Mission Bay project supported by Feeney and Atlantic, is scheduled to begin in March 2013, pending approval of the building's design by the UC Board of Regents, and is expected to be completed by August 2014.

"There is tremendous interest among our faculty and students in having a global impact on health, ranging from the most remote villages in Africa to cities here in the United States," said UCSF Global Health Sciences executive director Jaime Sepúlveda. "This building will enable us to place scientists, students, and health care professionals in one physical space, on one of the most dynamic health sciences campuses in the world, to train the next generation of leaders in this field."