The Susan and Richard Kiphart Center for Global Health and Social Development represents the newest chapter in the University’s long history of global engagement. For more than 100 years, University of Chicago faculty and students have worked in collaboration with scholars from around the world. Today, the University’s global reach spans farther than ever with University Centers in Paris, Delhi, Beijing, and Hong Kong, and hundreds of initiatives, partnerships, and programs in over 30 nations and on every continent. Extending beyond global academic excellence, the University’s global presence includes investments in community initiatives and global health programming, exemplified by the establishment of the Global Health Initiative in 2009. The Global Health Initiative served as unifying framework for students, staff, and faculty with an interest in global health and its consecutive years of success and growth led to the establishment of the Center for Global Health in the Biological Sciences Division (BSD). 

Building on the success of the Center for Global Health, the Kiphart Center was established in 2021 with $25 million gift from the Kiphart family, with the aim of bringing together global thought leaders, innovative scholars, and expertise from across the University and global community partners to make advances in life-changing global health and social development initiatives and education. 

Housed in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice and jointly administered by Crown and BSD, the Kiphart Center continues to advance research, training, and intervention in partnership with universities and communities to advance global health, social development, and health equity around the world. Moving well beyond biomedical approaches to global health, the Kiphart Center’s work utilizes a multidisciplinary approach emphasizing the social determinants of health to promote health and well-being in communities around the world by supporting training, innovative research, and community initiatives.