University of California San Francisco

early career salary/lab funding to bridge from K awards to R01

Please use some of the gift as endowments for long-term funds to pay (and retain) staff for UCSF's high-end cores

Under-represented minority faculty

As an early stage faculty of basic science who is working in the field of transnational research I have experienced threat to survive in the current funding environment. There are many challenges to establish as an independent researcher if there is no funding to support to generate preliminary data to begin to even submitting to investigator initiated research program NIH grants such as R01. I am aware that there are some exceptional early faculties who are getting funding support from extramural resources but my close observation even excluding me presents a gloomy picture for the future these young minds who invested a lot of energy and time in a hope that they will contribute to science and community. I hope my thoughts are taken not only in the context of UCSF environment this is the reality of biomedical research nationwide.Thank you for letting me express my thoughts.

Early career and physician-scientist faculty

Retention package

Under-represented minority faculty, funding for community health endeavors

I feel that priority should be focused on faculty who are committed to teaching medical students and primary care residents, especially in physical diagnosis skills and developing the physician-patient relationship. We are losing the art of medicine because of the increased emphasis on technology.

Funding for Educational Time (perhaps a teaching or educational RVU system) (ie. money to reimburse educators) -- especially in Graduate Medical education (working with residents and fellows) where there are very little sources of funding and thus usually only source is from Pro Fees.

smaller divisions, rare diseases, cross-disciplinary work, junior faculty, research staff, informatics support

Early Faculty development, research training. Mentoring incentive for senior researchers to team-up with like-minded junior researchers. Educational grants. Small projects grants.

I would use the $500 million gift to protect the independence of the research and educational enterprise to ensure that important work that may be politically threatened can continue. The areas that I am personally most familiar with are tobacco, reproductive health, health effects of global warming, and effects of chemicals and pesticides in the environment. I am sure that there are more.

This would require creating a stable funding base for faculty who are working in these areas to ensure that they would have continued employment and be able to move forward, at least modestly, in their work through support of associated students (including fellows). Staff could be supported through research funding.

A second area that I would focus on is to provide increased stability for faculty salaries. While UCSF has few state FTE, its faculty have been very successful in generating grant funding to support their work. During the time that NIH and other funding was growing rapidly, the practice of treating each faculty member in terms of profit and loss created strong incentive to bring in money. I never viewed that as equitable or appropriate, but today, in an era in which writing a great proposal is like buying a lottery ticket, it is not fair or equitable to expect everyone to raise most of their salary from extramural sources continuously.

The campus deals with this problem to some extent through offering bridge funding, which is very positive in terms of keeping research teams together, but the fundamental model still presumes funding success.

On the other hand, UCSF faculty do have a good record of success on average.

What we need to do is explicitly recognize this in faculty funding plans. Departments (or Divisions within the larger departments) should make faculty hiring decisions assuming some success in winning grants, but set aside funds to insure salaries against the possibility of failure across their entire faculty. Departments and Schools would then provide reinsurance against losses beyond reasonably expected failure rates and the campus would reinsure the Schools. Part of this gift (or income on an endownment created with the gift) would be used to support this system.

Of course, implementing such a system would require some central planning and controls on faculty growth beyond the old “you got the money you can be on the faculty” mentality. The system nominally does this, but it would probably need to be stronger.

Such a system would provide more security and stability for faculty, which would, in turn, encourage more innovative thinking and enhance academic freedom by moving away from a system where research decisions were dominated by who is offering money for externally defined priorities.

Doing so would also permit continuing to move away from the inappropriate use of adjunct and clinical appointments as a way of avoiding institutional financial responsibility of faculty (which has been the subject of several Senate and Senate/Administration committees over the years).

These funds would also be able to support the non-extramurally supported parts of people’s efforts (teaching, committees, etc) rather than the current practice in which these activities are often supported by faculty simply working more hours when their salaries are paid by extramural funds that were not specifically awarded for that purpose.

One place I would not put the money is to recruit and retain “stars” who bring in lots of money. As evidenced by the fact that they bring in a lot of money, they don’t need more. In addition, because no extramurally funded effort fully pays for itself because of unreimbursed indirect costs, these people are already heavily supported by the campus (implicitly at the expense of less-funded colleagues). They don’t need more.

The focus of this suggestion has been on faculty. I also support using funds to support students and fellows so that they can begin their careers without crushing debt and also have the funding security needed for them to be creative.

Stan Glantz

faculty whose type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them.

Mentoring new faculty and improving faculty practice

I would recommend money be set aside to support both LGBT and transgender-specific care as well as LGBT and specifically transgender faculty.

I am transgender myself and also Director of UCSF Transgender Care. The research funding climate is very tight outside of HIV-related sources, and with the new Administration and HHS leadership it is expected this will get even tighter. With regards to health services and related research, 1 in 2 transgender persons report having to teach their own provider about their own medical care. Our UCSF Transgender Care guidelines receive nearly 10,000 web visits per month. I received several requests per week from outside agencies seeking guidance from UCSF on how to provide transgender care or how to develop transgender care delivery programs. Unfortunately I have not been able to find support at HRSA for any kind of capacity building or support program and have to turn many of these requests down.

As a transgender woman I am all too aware of the factors and biases inherent in society that make it difficult for others such as myself to become physicians and faculty.

Faculty from lower SES backgrounds and under-represented minority faculty would be ideal

early career faculty

Strategic investments for recruiting faculty addressing research and clinical care in underserved populations

Leadership at the intersection of science and society: bioethics/neuroethics, policy implications of research advances

Housing and loan repayment programs to allow junior faculty to pursue academic careers in an increasingly expensive place to live

early career faculty and those with limited funding for research especially global health research and or the development of something akin to a K2 for those interested in global health research and data science.

I recommend that funds raised to endow faculty salaries be directed to faculty, such as myself, whose field or type of work (aging and health, with emphasis on longitudinal analysis of "big data" to examine substantive issues in this area) makes it unlikely a target donation will come to me.

salary support for tenured faculty is equally important. many tenured faculty members are struggling with finding support for their off-the-NIH cap salary, which can not be paid by any federal grant. This means no matter how many federal grants you get, if you don't have discretionary money, you can not cover your full salary. It will be great if this gift can be use to help here. This will be important for keeping our talented faculty from being recruited away from UCSF.

Salary equity. Women who are paid less than their male counterparts. Pediatric providers who see a large portion of MediCal, since their patient population is unlikely to have funds to donate themselves.

This money can be used to support resident education(with faculty supervision) in the local community. Programs that do not generate revenue eg: point of care clinics at homeless and/or domestic violence shelters.

For UCSF to maintain its standing as a place of scientific excellence, there must be some sort of minimal long-term support for basic science faculty. In the current deteriorating funding situation, even tenured faculty live in constant fear of having to reduce their salaries to a level that is not sustainable in the Bay Area and/or eventually loosing their job. This will lead to an erosion of academic freedom and scientific quality and ultimately damage the UCSF research enterprise.

Adjunct faculty as they are very unlikely to ever become endowed and are also more likely to leave as they might become discouraged when it becomes difficult to change series.

I would use the funds toward a variety of things including early career faculty. I would also support faculty whose field or type of work makes it difficult to get funds or high enough salaries to live in SF but provides essential care that is hard to obtain elsewhere or conducts research on issues that have difficulty getting funding.

No doubt there is a huge deficit in the presence of minority faculty at UCSF from Assistant thru and including senior level faculty. UCSF needs to " ... place money where their mouth is ..."

I would strongly advocate for transparency which has been lacking in the future. I agree to support faculty - but would advocate that all levels should be supported and aim to provide a set amount to support salaries ( hard money) for all faculty.

Support underrepresented minorities, faculty who need bridge funding

I think there should be 3 areas of support, listed in order of priority:
- research benefitting an underserved population with poor outside funding mechanisms
- early career
- under-represented minority faculty

Distribute to departments with fewer endowed chairs.

Clinician-scientists are more endangered than ever with the pressures on clinical time. Yet they are leaders and innovators critical to the success of UCSF, and the prominence of its clinical programs. Funding should be directed in appropriate levels to early and mid-career clinician-scientists, and also to retain accomplished senior faculty lacking adequate endowed support.

Would use this retain exceptional faculty

Housing grants to recruit faculty to UCSF. Should be binding for at least ten years, but forgiven if faculty stays for that period. The cost of living in SF is prohibitive for many talented faculty to come to UCSF.

The beauty of philanthropic funds is in help to fill funding gaps in places where society and government are less able or willing to fund key issues. Stigmatizing diseases, eg substance use, mental illness, homelessness are key examples. Educational efforts are needed to help young professionals be better prepared to help in these areas. I see clear deficits, e.g., in the medical school curricula at present.

raise salaries for faculty who are currently here and being paid less than other institutions (i.e. faculty retention). I've been priced out of the housing market and can't afford to live here much longer especially since my expenses are going up but my wages have not since arriving here 5 years ago.

Free parking for all physicians.

Would like to see funding reserved for those of us doing research in aspects of delivery systems, such as community supports for our burgeoning older adult, community-dwelling populations and those developing innovation methods /collaborations to improve population health.

Early career faculty, increased CTSI support for faculty.

Support world class researchers at ZSFG who are making a regional, national and international impact. These faculty, while having access to grateful patients, have NO ACCESS to grateful patients with financial means.

Early career faculty

I would like to see this focus on faculty who are unlikely to receive direct philanthropic donations, as well as faculty that can support and advance a broad range of research projects (e.g. biostats, deep learning, basic technology development)

Faculty who are unlikely to get other philanthropy

As a mid-level faculty who conducts clinical research myself, I find this to be a difficult niche for sustainability to full professor level. Departure for industry or private practice would be much more lucrative without the pressures of competing for ever shrinking grant funding.
Across Dept. of Medicine, it seems we have a preponderance of very junior people with a big exodus as people get more senior.
I would favor supporting mid-level faculty out of range of training grant/early career development options. (But am biased -- that's my status.)

Strategically/scientifically important population science unlikely to receive targeted donations.

Mid-career faculty (Associate Professor), Faculty whose clinical/education/research work focuses on underserved populations in the US and globally, or working on neglected diseases/diseases of poverty

I think this money should be used to recruit and retain faculty that come from underrepresented backgrounds. It is really important to clarify that this does not need to include just race/ethnicity, but rather first to college, persons with substantial barriers to living in SF, etc.

Early career faculty

Female faculty, so they are equally represented at the highest levels of leadership. In particular funding for extended maternity leave and greater support for faculty with young children.

faculty whose field is unlikely a targeted donation such as those working with underserved populations (SFGH) where these opportunities do not exist.

Early career faculty, early to mid career faculty including those who have submitted R01 but do not yet have funding

It would be much appreciated if a tiny fraction of this fund can be utilized to support resident and fellow projects at UCSF fresno

j vempilly
Pulmonary & Critical Care

Establish a fund to ease burdens/pressure on early faculty. Also establish more comprehensive internal funding opportunities with emphasis on junior faculty or team science

early career female faculty members in the Adjunct series who are unlikely to get targeted donations

As career development grants (as in NIH) for early career faculty who would be considered upon application with 3-5 year research/career development proposal, at the end of which period it would be passed to another early career faculty.

Retention and recognition of faculty who didn't arrive with large startups, but made progress by bootstrapping their career development at UCSF.

Underrepresented minority faculty (including women)

faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them (e.g., an endowment from a grateful patient, etc.).

Support faculty salary at unique precepting sites/opportunities that could not provide revenue, like providing primary care at a homeless shelter, sports medicine at local schools, reproductive health training to at-risk populations etc.

early career faculty and faculty who study fields with little federal or philanthropic funding opportunities (global surgery, for example).

URM faculty, educational faculty, ZSFG faculty not involved in trauma services (only group of patients likely to make donation).

1) Supporting junior faculty; 2) Supporting gender equity in salaries; 3) extending IRAPS for first few years of full professor for those that did not benefit from the full 6 years of IRAPS support; 4) Supporting under-represented minority faculty

Pediatric cancer has been traditionally underfunded, yet the years of life lost and years of life lived with a disability are significant. Multi-model treatments (most coordinated through the Children's Oncology Group) have greatly increased survival, but much less attention has been paid to the short and long-term psycho-social consequences of experiencing a life-threatening illness as a child (the consequences impact all members of the family). In 2015 new guidelines have been issued for psycho-social care for children in treatment for cancer and for long-term survivors of pediatric cancers (Dec 2015, Ped Blood & Cancer). As a leading institution in the country we are woefully behind in this area. We should be providing more psycho-social care, carrying out research related to the best forms of screening and delivering such care, and strengthening educational programs for children and families faced with cancer. This work is rarely the focus of philanthropic foundations, (most focus on a cure), and NIH has no sitting review committees with a pediatric oncology focus. Psycho-social services are desperately needed by children and families and their need is also perceived by pediatric oncologists, nurses and social workers who are on the front line. Funding for a faculty member to address this gap and build a program should be a priority.

1) QOL, wellness, and mindfulness improvements for faculty
2) Endowment for neuro-oncology service which is in need of yearly subsidy to support broad research services.

Almost all the groups above have mechanisms for support intramurally or extramurally, however, faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation is the only group without recourse. As such I vote for this as a priority target of the fund.

Use some of this money to guarantee 5% support so that the faculty can be allowed eo spend up to 95% from sponsored funds

Under-represented (early career) minority Faculty

Set up a rotating group of say 8 star UCSF scientists to make decision of whom to support, selecting those under 60 to make these judgements. Focus on rewarding true excellence, while simultaneously rejecting total grant/lab size as ANY measure of quality. Provide salary support for those who meet two criteria: 1). Demonstrated commitment to improving the quality of teaching, graduate and post-doc programs, and research environment at UCSF; by greatly reducing need for the individual to fund most of his or her salary, you are specifically promoting/rewarding their time spent on the UCSF community. 2) Awardees must also be innovative research stars, to serve as models for others to emulate in their science as well as their service. Especially reward risk-taking basic science.

Early carer faculty
Basic science faculty (who are unlikely to get endowed chairs) to decrease the amount of their salary that must come from grants
Under-represented faculty in this order

Truly innovative and radical projects that challenge conventional beliefs and which are otherwise unlikely to receive extramural funding.

I highly recommend use of funds to make a measurable improvement in the representation of under-represented minority faculty. This could be done through a fund that departments can use to augment recruitment packages for URM. These recruitments should be at all levels (junior, mid-career, senior) to address lack of URM at all levels of academic life at UCSF.

early career faculty

Bridge funding to help junior faculty transition to Associate Level. If possible there should be a special emphasis on female faculty at this stage. There are many grants from foundations, etc. that support early career faculty. Efforts to support under-represented minority faculty should start earlier in training and is an entirely separate important avenue to pursue as well. The last category regarding "faculty whose work makes it unlikely..." seems unfair because even within fields where philanthropic support DOES exist, it often is not equitably distributed anyway. The junior faculty transition to Associate level is a particularly high dropout time for academic researchers, especially in today's environment, and especially for women. (Cooke et al, Ann Intern Med. 2014;160(5):359-360)

Thank you for soliciting this information from the faculty. I believe that this is a wonderful opportunity to create several endowed Chair positions at UCSF. I suggest creating an open, transparent, peer-reviewed and competitive process for such endowed Chairs. With 200 million, in principle, 80 endowed chair's can be created with a $2.5M endowment each from which a 4% interest of $100,000 could be drawn. The Academic Senate could administer this through the COR and CAP and it could be part of RAP. It would be great to create a "Distinguished UCSF Diller Professorship" or "UCSF Faculty Diller Scholar". If one is creative, there could be different amounts for different career stages - say 50K for Assistants, 75K for Associates and 100K for Professors. This may create more opportunities for more people. If we create a 3-5 year horizon for these awards, with an application process, then it could be really competitive, with no renewable. Only folks without FTE from state (unless they want a new career direction) or existing endowed chair's should be allowed to compete. The COR can ensure that there is considerations for under-represented minorities, hardships and coverage across schools and disciplines.

Currently a state FTE is supporting only a fraction of faculty salaries, typically less than 40% in my department. I think the endowment should be used to help support a greater fraction of faculty salaries. For example, Berkeley manages to support 75% of all faculty salaries (ie much more than UCSF). UCSF should use the funds to help support all faculty to be more competitive with other schools such as UC Berkeley, etc.

-early career faculty
-established (Assoc or Full Professor) faculty being recruited here who balk at the move because of housing costs (a significant hardship in recruiting new faculty)
-high risk/ high gain research unlikely to receive Federal support without substantial pilot data/ proof-of-concept data
-investigations bridging (traditionally disconnected) disciplines (either different branches of clinical research or translational preclinical/clinical teams working together)
-systems biology approaches studying the same tissue/ population/ subjects from different mechanistic perspectives
-informatics to facilitate systems biology approaches

Early career faculty.

supporting research in improving education of students and faculty in delivering health care across racial, ethnic and class differences

Early career faculty. Thanks!

I recommend the funds be used for early career faculty, particularly in areas where there is minimal patient visibility (pathology, radiology) and targeted donations are rare.

This presents an unique opportunity to support the faculty (through endowed professorships) and research (through a research fund) for predominantly non-patient-facing departments (like anesthesia, pathology, radiology, pharmacy, nursing) that are essential to the care team for patients but are usually not identified as the principal beneficiaries of patient-related philanthropy.

We have far too many faculty who are in the In-Residence series, who are, nonetheless, functioning as ladder-rank faculty, both in terms of productivity and in terms of requirements for advancement. Endowment funds to provide the rough equivalent of FTE support for such faculty would go some way toward correcting a fundamental unfairness at UCSF. Note, however, that even with a more or less level financial playing field, the lack of tenure is still a stark difference that limits the ability of In-Residence faculty to take intellectual risks.

My priority would be stable partial salary support equal to or greater than 1.0 X for established faculty UCSF would like to retain. I also like the 5 year grants proposed in the announcement to accelerate the research programs of rising stars.

Funding for early career faculty and under-represented minority faculty is my recommendation.

This award is fabulous and I totally support some of it used to provide salary support for faculty. I'm somewhat agnostic about whether junior, mid or senior, but would make a huge difference. I think another use would be start-up packages for junior faculty which UCSF has trouble competing with size of offers made from other top universities. Our faculty especially suffer from high housing cost n the bay area. Help in any and all of these areas could make a big difference to protecting our most important asset...our faculty.

Female faculty (and to a lesser extent male faculty) returning from substantial leave taken to care for/raise a child.

I would prioritize mid-level faculty without federal funding, in particular researchers who directly care for the cancer patients they study- T1 translational researchers. These physician-scientists are at a disadvantage in grant funding compared to their entirely basic colleagues, yet make a significant difference to patients' lives.

early career faculty

bridge funding for early career faculty & under-represented minority faculty

early career faculty
basic science faculty

Early career faculty, Under-represented minority faculty

Funding to support UCSF faculty working on research that is likely to be targeted/reduced in the current administration, including abortion research, gun violence, adolescent sexual health, and violence against women.

1. Faculty with children. Providing resources to support preschool and beyond costs is the only way to keep faculty with families at UCSF. This mechanism could also allow college subsidies for faculty kids.
2. Faculty women. Women, especially in basic science, have long been neglected and inadequately supported group at UCSF (with some exceptions). A recent example of bias is CZI - 10 women at Stanford, 7 from Berkeley and only 4 here were awarded this significant amount of money. Same examples exist for UCSF initiatives. There are very few faculty chairs in basic science currently awarded to women. If we want to be able to recruit and retain women, we should start supporting them to the extent that male faculty are supported and promoted.
3. Faculty who contribute significant amount of service and teaching.

Faculty support to participate in issues that are particularly challenging to medicine today, particularly for how to address the challenges of rising costs of care and rising out of pocket expenses for patients, Also efforts to work on alternative health care delivery strategies

Early to mid career faculty support

As well as providing endowment for faculty salaries, I strongly recommend using endowment funds to support long-term essential professional scientific personnel (staff or specialists) who manage high-end cores (e.g. microscopy, mass spectrometry, genomics, etc.). These people are critical to our scientific success, but are very hard to recruit and retain or to support by existing means. Their support could be provided based on an ongoing (e.g. 5 yearly) reviews. Prior to becoming a Professor at UCSF, I was in biotech for 20 years and a major advantage was being able to recruit and retain highly skilled professional technical staff who provided essential support to the entire enterprise. Giving such professional technical staff at UCSF some job security - such as 5 year contracts (subject to satisfactory annual performance evaluations) would help us compete with local pharma and biotech for these highly skilled individuals- who can pay them higher salaries, but typically do not provide any job security.

As well as providing endowment for faculty salaries, I strongly recommend using endowment funds to support long-term essential scientific personnel (staff/specialists) who manage high-end cores (e.g. microscopy, mass spectrometry, genomics). These people are critical to our scientific success (as individuals and as an institution) but are very hard to recruit and retain or to support by existing means. Their support could be provided based on an ongoing (e.g. 5 yearly) reviews. Support for essential scientific personnel is common in European institutions and contributes greatly to their success.

Under represented minority faculty

Funds are needed to support key scientific personnel (staff specialists, etc) who perform highly technical procedures (e.g.; microscopy, genomics, gene targeting and editing in mice and other organisms, etc) that are critical for the scientific success of several programs. These personnel are very difficult to recruit and retain in the Bay Area or to support by existing means. Their ongoing support could be contingent on rigorous reviews every 5 years to ensure their continuing scientific activity. These kinds of support are common in programs in Europe and Asia and contributes greatly to their successes.

As well as providing endowment for faculty salaries, I strongly recommend using endowment funds to support long-term essential scientific personnel (staff/specialists) who manage high-end cores (e.g. microscopy, mass spectrometry, genomics). These people are critical to our scientific success (as individuals and as an institution) but are very hard to recruit and retain or to support by existing means. Their support could be provided based on an ongoing (e.g. 5 yearly) reviews. Support for essential scientific personnel is common in European institutions and contributes greatly to their success.

faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them

1. Clinican educator faculty.
2. Underrepresented minority faculty
3. Faculty who work in interprofessional education/practice

retaining faculty through supporting housing, continuing education, salaries, improved ways for faculty to collaborate and communicate in person

1) Research funding support for under-represented Faculty of Color
2) Research funding for Early Career Faculty - Social and Behavior Sciences

I propose that the money be used for : 1) endowed faculty salaries for academic faculty that do not receive any salary support from their department or from the UCSF institution (so create a more sustainable source of funding for faculty); 2) to recruit underrepresented faculty, whether they are from certain ethnic/racial groups, or women; 3) to fund research that is of high priority for health, but that does not fall within traditional funding priorities, for example health disparities and population health studies, studies of prevention of disease, environmental health.

faculty whose field of type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them

I believe a priority should be placed on supporting physician-scientists. The demands on their time to juggle patients and full time running of a wet lab, often at multiple campuses due to the challenging multi-campus nature of UCSF, often leaves them feeling left out of both worlds - their purely clinical colleagues are able to outcompete them for patients because they are always available on the clinical front and their purely scientific colleagues outcompete them for grants because they can spend all their time writing grants. The physician-scientist is vital to bridging the bench to bedside gap but is a dying breed and endowing faculty support for physician-scientists would help support this important group.

early career faculty, particularly under-represented minority faculty who might be struggling to maintain or secure funding from multiple sources beyond their start-up packages. I also think there should be a special pot for faculty who serve underserved and vulnerable patients/populations (e.g., patients at Zuckerberg San Francisco General). These funds could also support the Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research that targets under-represented minorities who are interested in pursuing doctoral degrees in public health.

1. Fellow-Faculty and Early career faculty support; 2. Under-represented minority retainment/recruitment

I would like part of this money going to a fund to sponsor endowments for faculty that are unlikely to get one from patients. Maybe a competition for a Hellen Diller chair or several partial chairs?

This incredibly generous gift allows UCSF to consider support for areas that have faced structural challenges in fundraising. For example, hospital-based departments provide services that are essential to the broader UCSF missions, but because of the nature of their interactions with patients (i.e., a transient visit to radiology for imaging, immediate resuscitation and stabilization in the emergency department with admission to another service for longer-term care, behind-the-scene services by pathology and laboratory medicine, or a patient experience that might occur mostly under anesthesia), such departments have difficulty identifying grateful patients and benefiting from their philanthropy. Some portion of this gift should be used to support the work and important contributions of faculty in these hospital-based departments.

Funds could be positively used to construct recruitment packages, and retention packages.
As well, core support for features that would ease faculty life -- like real support for grantwriting (1 quarter of RA support per year), and grant submission would be great

Early career faculty -- from all stripes!

Faculty health and welfare, including work life balance, time management, coping with stress is fundamental to faculty at all levels. Developing sustainable sabbatical programs that allow faculty development would also be translatable across faculty as well. With respect to endowing faculty salaries, there can be applications for early, mid, late career awards to promote early engagement in research, mid-level career transitions, late career mentoring, teaching.

Funds should be used for early career faculty as well as established faculty who are working in the field of aging to facilitate their work across departments and schools. There are faculty in every school working in this area, but many do not know what their colleagues are doing and how their work can be enhanced by collaboration. These funds could facilitate such research development across schools. It would also be great to have funds available to convene an internal meeting or conference to have our faculty present to one another and begin to develop collaborations.

I think funds to support early career faculty, work-life balance initiatives, programs that focus on physician burnout, protected research time for early career clinician investigators.

I think supporting faculty whose field of work is less likely to get outside attention and or gifts would be important.

I would recommend early physicians-scientists (Assistant and early Associate) be a priority. The extremely tough paylines and NIH salary cap make it extremely tough to envision a successful long term career research career that often requires more than one R01 level award to meet salary and benefit requirements. These gaps are made up by adding on clinical time. It is clear that the pull to industry or to abandon a research career altogether is strong and negatively impacting the pipeline of the next generation of physician-scientists at UCSF. UCSF has a long-standing national reputation of excellence in biomedical research. It is extremely difficult to recruit junior faculty to UCSF given the economic pressures in the Bay Area. Endowment support would have a tremendous benefit in allowing UCSF to retain world-class junior investigators already here by relieving some of the anxiety about trying to pursue a research career. For a relatively small amount of investment, coordinators or post-docs could be hired, additional experiments performed, or statistical support obtained. These early investments are likely to pay great dividends in faculty retention as well as helping to secure extramural funding.

I believe that priority should be given to recruited or retained department chairs and ORU directors who received commitments in their offer letters for fte's and/or endowed positions but have not, to date, received them.

Faculty who are unlikely to receive a targeted donation (Radiology, pathology, etc)

of the ~$8M annually in interest for faculty,
one idea would be to give up to 1000 faculty members $8000 or 500 faculty members $16,000 toward salary (5% non-extramural funds, over the cap funding, etc) since so many cuts and changes have reduced flexibility to cover some salary amounts. this would reach far more faculty than giving $80,000 to 100 faculty.
another idea would be to give $40,000 to 200 different faculty each year to fund some kind of partial sabbatical (eg 1-4 months).

This is a great opportunity to support some of the cross-cutting themes that arose in the context of the Capital Campaign. Two that I think are particularly important (and often underfunded through other mechanisms) are the proposed theme on Redefining Aging, and the 2+ proposed themes on health equity.

URM faculty, junior faculty, those studying diversity, poverty, racism and its impacts on health care delivery. All those topics will not get philanthropy from grateful patients.

Given the changes in demographics, there is an urgent need to support faculty who are doing research in aging, including those who are 1) developing innovative programs for older adults that will optimize aging and promote health in the community, 2) increasing research to help reduce health disparities of older adults, and 3) learning how older adults can advance into very old age free of disability AND how to improving the well-being of older adults who are coping with serious medical conditions or approaching the end of life.

AGING: we need faculty support to expand clinical programs to serve the growing complex older population, educate all health care providers about older adults, and research the best ways to care for our older patients.

1. Support recruitment and retention of URM faculty across schools
2. Support paid parental leave (childbearing, childrearing)
3. Faculty preparation to address racism in the classroom and in clinical learning environments

Early career faculty should be a top priority, including clinical faculty. Given the enormously high cost of living, recruitment and retention of these faculty is essential to the health and success of the university and UCSF Health

- Salary supplementation for faculty in series who currently must generate 95-100% of their salary from grants and contracts, which is a huge problem especially as salary goes up with merit and inflation and the amount of many small-midsized grants remain the same (it means at least one grant effectively disappears into PI salary regardless of how budgets are spread around).

- Fund for major renovation of labs for existing faculty in old facilities

- For community quality of life, replace those awful pianos in the Millberry practice rooms with good ones, with a service contract to have them tuned and kept up. Just a random thought. And duplicate in Rutter Center.

- Financial support for security to actively patrol the grounds and actively enforce the prohibition on smoking, at least in patient-thoroughfares if not the larger grounds. I'm frustrated at how frequently I have to ask people to stop smoking near the entrances to our medical buildings and along the pedestrian routes from the parking garage to the hospital, and sometimes they even give me attitude and don't want to stop. Beefed up enforcement would be lovely, but might require extra personnel cost for all I know.

Incremental care, preventive care, complex care coordination – all of these represent academic primary care at ICSF. As our patients deal with more varied and complex treatment regimens for long-term chronic diseases, our system of clinical care must be equipped to respond. At the same time, change is disruptive, and we want to offer evidence-based solutions and pragmatic technological investments in primary care. While precision medicine is moving forward quickly in subspecialty fields, primary care often lacks the resources and investment to address such opportunities, despite being integral to comprehensive care at UCSF.
In order for the “Primary Care Clinic of the Future” to move forward, we need investments in both senior faculty with distinct bioinformatics experience, as well as early career faculty who are dedicated to responding to this fast-moving field. These faculty would, ideally, have strong ties to the clinical work done in primary care at UCSF in order to move this forward in the best interests of patients and providers. We propose that funds from this award go towards support of two stages of faculty: an endowed chair for health IT/bioinformatics and for support of 1-2 early career faculty dedicated to establishing the Primary Care Practice of the Future.

Faculty focused on aging

I am particularly interested in supporting clinical faculty who help advance the academic mission of UCSF. Clinicians who participate in scientific endeavors (in the broadest sense of the word) are essential to ensure integration of the research, clinical and education missions and optimal integration between the 3 is what makes UCSF so strong. We are not "just" a top biomedical research hub, or just a great medical school, or a top 10 medical center, we have the ability to truly advance health worldwide because we are all 3. With increasing demands to generate RVU's it is essential that UCSF ensures clinicians continue to have protected time to pursue their academic endeavors. Therefore I particularly endorse support for:
1) Early career faculty - in particular physician scientists (in the broadest sense of the word) and physicians who want to develop academic programs but who are either not ready to submit a K or not eligible because their area of focus lies outside the NIH interest (but within the academic mission of the medical center)
2) Clinical fellows, in particular those who want to develop their scientific skills

UCSF should invest in physician researchers with quantitative skills (broadly: genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, medical informatics and related fields). The data in these fields is rapidly accumulating, but most physicians including most physician researchers are not capable of utilizing these data; conversely, the scientists working in these fields are generally computationally trained without a deep understanding of the clinically relevant questions. A cadre of physician-researchers with strong quantitative skills would be uniquely positioned to make a major impact in the next decade. Since the current pool is not deep, the approach should be to (a) identify and support current faculty who fit this description (b) identify outside faculty who may fit this description and recruit (c) use the support given to existing faculty and new faculty recruited to develop a training program (students, residents and fellows) who have some background to complete additional training and develop expertise. The long term goals would be to learn from our own patients in ways we are not currently capable of due to insufficient expertise, and to develop a generation of physician researchers who will change the way data is used in real time in medicine.

I propose support for a faculty person to lead and coordinate efforts to reduce health disparities for mono-lingual Asian patients. There are close to 200 faculty physicians of Asian descent at UCSF and just about all want to be available to help care for mono-lingual Asian patients. There is an informal network of Asian faculty among whom we refer our non-English speaking Asian patients, usually done via email between us as there is no phone line at UCSF dedicated to Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean patients to assist them in navigating our system. There isn't even signage in any language other than English. There have been misses and near misses with mono-lingual Asian patients receiving care at UCSF due to this glaring omission of language concordant signs and bilingual navigators, an omission that should not exist in a city where 1/3 of the population are Asian, including our Mayor. A single phone number staffed by 2 or 3 bilingual or trilingual navigators would help rectify this situation. This faculty can formalize the network, oversee the Health System interventions to help mono-lingual Asian patients, and help coordinate research involving mono-lingual patients between different departments.

spread the wealth broadly

I would support funding early career faculty and women.

There is a tremendous need to support faculty clinician educators and researchers focused on Aging. Specifically, in areas related to providing interprofessional education on caring for older adults across professions, disciplines, and sites of care, conducting aging research (biological, social, educational, behavioral, policy, clinical, bioethics, and health services) to learn how older adults can advance into very old age free of disability AND how to improve the well-being of older adults who are coping with serious medical conditions or approaching the end of life, and re-imagining clinical care that will optimize aging and provide medical care in the home and in communities.

(sorry if this was sent twice)
I would like, first, to echo Dr. Jeff Tice's recommendation already submitted to you about Primary Care of the future and IT/personalized medicine. I would also like to come at it from a different angle: the constraints that our primary care practice faces now because of the limitations of our physical space. High-functioning primary care practices co-locate the physicians with their support staff to improve efficiencies for patient care and provider workload. In our current physical configuration, this is not possible without a new practice space or an overhaul of our current space. However, there may be some innovative stop-gap measures that could improve our ability to care for our patients by improving real time communication and work flows. If we could hire an architect/consultant who is an expert in clinical practice design, and have a dedicated practice improvement fund, we could explore innovative re-purposing of our physical space to at least bring us closer to an ideal physical configuration. Hand-in-hand with this should be an improvement and re-imagination of the IT capabilities of our practice, some of which already exist in other areas of UCSF. Although the "grand ideas" that will be presented to you are important, the basic environment in which the grand ideas can occur need to be considered as well. thank you.

Early career faculty, under-represented minority faculty, and faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them is the best use of the funds, however this includes Social Behavioral Sciences faculty. Their research is the least likely to receive financial support and yet is the most likely to center on diversity issues such as health disparities research.

I deeply support the examples given: early career faculty, under-represented minority faculty, and faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them (e.g., an endowment from a grateful patient, etc.). In addition, I would strongly recommend supporting faculty whose work contributes to health equity issues, social determinants of health, and social inequalities. Please consider supporting faculty in disciplines and programs that are not already covered by other major philanthropic gifts.

SFGH researchers who do not have access to wealthy grateful patients; policy research that is very challenging to get funded

Funding for education leadership in Primary Care Internal Medicine: Primary Care, particularly for adults, is an essential component to an effective healthcare system. Recruiting and training high quality residents in adult primary care is critical to the success of our own institution in addition to society at large. UCSF's Division of General Internal Medicine has been training residents to be leaders in adult primary care for decades and has a track record for excellence in this domain that is recognized at the national level. The program has consistently graduated residents who have gone on to be leaders in primary care practice, innovation, research, education and public health. Funding to support this educational mission, however, is generated entirely by the Division of General Internal Medicine without support from the Department of Medicine or UCSF Health. Additionally, given the financial pressure that primary care is under in general, it has become increasingly difficult to fund positions to support educational leadership. Finally, given the current political environment, primary care is likely to be at a significant disadvantage for funding at the national level for the forseeable future. A targeted donation to this endeavor is unlikely as the patients in primary care that tend to benefit the most from primary care services are the disadvantaged, poor and disenfranchised. An endowed chair for education within DGIM would ensure the success of this importnat educational mission.

I think the definition of the latter category could be better explained as it is quite ambiguous - as written, it could mean anyone doing basic science. The first two categories should be supported wholeheartedly, and promising early career faculty are still lost too often. But the third category might be better reserved for those less likely to secure NIH funds due to neglect of their area - examples that come to mind include neglected infectious diseases and global mental health.

Support for early and mid career faculty -- especially in areas of study/research that are vital but do not generate clinical revenue.

I think part of this money could be well-spent by apportioning some of it to mid-to-senior faculty retention. I find that there is often a lot of recruitment of amazing individuals who still could contribute significantly to the development of junior faculty and others if they stayed, but other institutions are able to offer packages that are more attractive and flexible than UC. While junior and early career faculty support is important, if there are no senior faculty to support their development, it makes them less likely to succeed.

Faculty with an interest in DELIVERY SYSTEM REDESIGN and IMPROVEMENT SCIENCE is an area of growing interest and importance for faculty who want to help improve and innovate in the care delivery experience and patient-centered outcomes AT UCSF HEALTH. However, this is often an area in a watershed zone for funding because faculty doing local improvement and redesign work have difficulty finding funding for their time/effort. I would propose sponsoring several 3-year "Delivery System Redesign" fellowships to support faculty at 30-50% time in order to receive some additional training and complete several projects in areas of importance to Cancer Center and UCSF Health. Existing programs to support them include the CTSI Implementation Science Certificate Program (5 courses), in-depth Lean Training, and the Clinical Innovation Center (for implementation/hands-on support). I would be happy to help explore this further with a faculty committee.

There is a strong need to support junior faculty in all the UCSF schools, especially those in non-clinical roles, as the continuity and certainty of federal funding is being threatened by the current federal administration. Also the areas of aging research (biological, social, behavioral, policy, clinical, bioethics, and health services) and diversity (racial/ethnic minorities, disadvantaged populations, and LGBT) should be a priority. This includes identifying novel ways to improve care for diverse aging populations; providing specialized multidisciplinary education and training to students, fellows, and junior faculty; and investing in novel technologies and cost-effective strategies to promote the health of our diverse aging population.

I would encourage that at least some of these funds go to non-clinical faculty (PhDs) who are often responsible for raising 100% salary support for themselves plus staff.

Definitely agree that non-clinician faculty should be a priority, particularly those effectively engaged in increasing diversity, reducing disparities, and engaging with under-served communities.

Additional time effort support to adjunct faculty to cover non-research time dedicated to teaching, mentoring, and service--activities not otherwise supported by research grants and must be done on a "volunteer" basis, but that are still required for advancement.

There are so many gifts to biomedical science, and very few for the social/behavioral sciences. Likewise, there are many gifts pertaining to specific diseases, but very few to populations. Two populations needing gifts include older adults and minority or disparity populations. Disparity populations include those who are ethnic minority and/or of lower socioeconomic status. In San Francisco, these two often overlap. The needs for research into improving the lives of our older and minority/poor populations is large. Issues of aging include aging in place (staying at home as one ages with appropriate services) instead of having to go to an institutional setting because of funding policy, receiving care from geriatricians who need to specialize in all diseases as older people often have many problems including functional problems, and research into community-based solutions to loneliness and depression (as an example). I could list numerous issues of aging and being vulnerable that UCSF should be addressing. Thank you. Anita Stewart, Ph.D.

The Division of General Internal Medicine should be a leader in the transformation of how primary care is practiced and delivered in the U.S. Key faculty (Drs. Ida Sim and Meghana Gadgil) have received some state funding to start to implement mHealth tools to manage chronic diseases. To accelerate this pace of innovation and rigorous but quick-paced evaluation, we need to have a dedicated champion with programmer support to lead this effort. I propose we recruit an experienced faculty with an endowed chair for Primary Care Innovations and having resources to support for a full-time experienced APeX programmer with this gift. This Primary Care Innovations leader would be involved with the Population Health management program at UC Health to be able to test innovations in DGIM and roll them out into other ambulatory clinic settings once they were proven effective. This investment would have clinical, educational and research implications for DGIM and more broadly for UC Health.

Faculty who are working on community-engaged or community-partnered projects. These faculty and projects have a more difficult time getting NIH research grants. Also foundation grants may not be able to cover the necessary proportion of a faculty's salary in order to conduct these sorts of projects due to the higher salary levels of health sciences faculty.

I recommend supporting clinical and/or clinical X faculty in School of Dentistry working with low paying MediCal/DentiCal patients such as cleft lip and palate and other craniofacial anomalies.

There is tremendous need to support faculty who:
1. do research in all aspects of aging (social, biological, clinical, policy, ethics, social justice, health services);
2. provide administrative and programmatic leadership and direction to clinical programs for older adults;
3 provide specialized multidisciplinary education and training to health professionals, caregivers and community partners to care for growing numbers of older persons;
4. re-imagine clinical care that will optimize aging and provide medical care in the home and in communities.

The UC Health Website makes a promise "to every member of every community: You can count on us to help you stay well, get healthy and live better." This is best done when we work alongside community organizations that are doing the grassroots work that helps the most vulnerable. Whether Careen in the Mission (Central Americans) or the Equal Justice Society (racial justice) or the Global Fund for Women (women's rights), faculty should be supported to create meaningful partnerships and bring our resources to these types of social justice organizations that help our patients where they live.

Hospital-based departments such as Radiology, Pathology, and Anesthesia routinely make major contributions to the extraordinary clinical care at UCSF, yet they go unrecognized when it comes to philanthropy from grateful patients. This major donation can be used to address that inequity by creating endowed chairs in those targeted departments to recruit and retain the finest physicians.

UCSF is desperately in need of a more coordinated approach to integrated behavioral health in primary care. This would include both mental illness treatment (as most occurs outside of the Dept of Psychiatry) and behavioral medicine interventions related to chronic disease prevention and management (nutrition, exercise, smoking cessation, medication adherence, stress management). The recent expansion of the Dept of Psychiatry has focused almost exclusively on MD psychiatrists and pharmacotherapy while ignoring evidence-based psychotherapy/counseling and interventions to address social determinants of health (violence, food insecurity, poverty, marginalization). Funds could be used to support faculty psychologists, social workers, and other integrated behavioral health professionals with the academic expertise to design, implement, and evaluate an integrated behavioral health program. Given the nature of this content area, support could be directed for scholarly work, education, and clinical innovations including digital health tools that promote behavior change and mood management.

To meet the growing diversity of our population, we need to train clinicians and researchers on appropriate methods for providing quality primary and specialty care and conducting research among diverse populations. A strong, proactive mentoring program with support for minority faculty who do this now without compensation is warranted. As a minority faculty member, I recognize and can be sensitive the the many challenges faced by new trainees entering the competitive environment found at UCSF. Such trainees can be provided with a nurturing, challenging and strategic mentoring program that enhances their career potential and accomplishments,

Support faculty practicing with underserved and vulnerable patients, such as at San Francisco General Hospital and the VA Medical Center

1. Help support early career faculty with FTE, and not just for researchers. Would be incredibly valuable for clinician-educators working with residents, since funding streams here are not as easy.
2. Also support funding URM faculty who have an interest working with community clinincs. Currently the 25% imposed tax from UCSF onto community agencies makes it hard to form these partnerships.
3. Consider supporting educational iniatives in aging. We know that our population is aging and we arent training our students and residents. We have faculty willing to teach, but no FTE to support this. With FTE, we would have more educational programs around teaching residents about taking care of patients in alternative settings such as home, assisted living, and nursing homes.

Early career faculty support including for those doing medical education.

faculty that are running/organizing projects in the community to improve the lives of Bay Area residents, faculty who are doing meaningful research in areas where there is not historically funding available (e.g. global health research that is not just infectious disease or maternal/child health; firearm violence prevention, etc); build a building that provides Mission Bay clinical faculty with offices, not cubicles, so that they can do HIPAA-compliant work (returning phone calls, telehealth conferencing) in a space appropriate for their work. More travel grants available for research and/or educational endeavors. Research support for particular clinical areas for whom there is not readily available grant funding (clinical programs - particularly in pediatrics and the surgical fields) to help get these clinical research programs going. Thank you for asking our opinions on the expenditure of these funds.

Recruiting and retaining high quality junior faculty from diverse backgrounds. This doesn't just mean monetary support, it means surrounding them with mentors (who are in turn supported) and staff (research assistants, lab techs, programmers) to get the work done. It means setting them up to succeed by placing them in the highest functioning groups within UCSF (e.g. geriatrics).

Faculty whose field makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them

Support for clinician educators. More than ever before, clinician-educators feel the "paradox" of an RVU-based system and struggle to balance clinical productivity with teaching efforts. Consider increased endowments for teachers to compensate them for teaching efforts, anything from stipends for teaching courses to buying them out of clinics so they can teach or increase the number of endowed chairs to develop educational programs and support educational leadership. Enhancing grants to support educational research and innovation would also help to elevate the already stellar educational community here.

Clinicians who see patients have the most opportunities to get gifts, so this should go to faculty who do not provide patient care and don't have that opportunity.

Basic science faculty in clinical departments is treated like second-class citizens, with the exception of perhaps department of medicine, where I understand some funds are provided to cover salary support for basic scientists. I would like to see at least 30-40% of salary covered for all basic science faculties at UCSF, irrespective of the school or department they are in or their rank (In-residence would be a good place to start). Without faculty being secure in their positions, I see reluctance on their part to foster careers of next generation, as they will be competing with them for limited resources. It is ironic that a job of an analyst is more secure than that of a faculty, despite faculty being revenue generators and others with no potential of every generating any revenue. The culture needs to change. I would like to see some concrete steps taken to foster faculty that has been languishing and not pour money in to building more 4 walls/buildings that remain largely unoccupied.

1. Endowed chairs for basic science faculty
2. Internal UCSF mechanism for R01 style grants for senate faculty in supported areas

It would be great to use funds to support faculty who are focused on medical education as there are often limited funding opportunities for this type of work.

A portion of the funding should go to support early career faculty and post-docs in bench and social behavioral research (those who do not have options for adding clinical hours). The current NIH post-doc is not a living wage and yet faculty with families are expected to survive on 40,000-50,000 a year (in San Francisco that is essentially impossible). Early career faculty could be provided with two-three years of 'start up' support as they build their research program. In addition, funding for under-represented faculty recruitment would be a good investment.

I would recommend devoting a portion of the funds to support those basic science faculty (at all ranks) who rely on NIH grants as their sole or main source of funding. Such faculty are now required to raise the majority of their salary and benefits from NIH (or comparable) grants, and this is becoming impossible. Why? In order to sustain grant support, faculty members must demonstrate productivity in the form of results and publications; if a large portion of the budget is going for our faculty salaries, we cannot compete with those at institutions (such as MIT) that provide much more salary support. As a result, UCSF faculty are at a significant disadvantage in the amount of research they can provide per dollar of NIH funding. I would also advocate spreading the money around the faculty instead of rewarding those who make the most noise or those who repeatedly threaten to leave unless their demands are met. The great depth of UCSF faculty is one of our strongest attributes, and we should invest is keeping it vibrant and innovative.

The gift for faculty support could include: enhanced funding for housing support to recruit under-represented minority faculty; Supporting clinical time that supports the faculty's research; Travel funds for new faculty to attend conferences or training outside the university; Support for research assistant for faculty without grant support; Funding administrative staff with research skills to support research faculty (in School of Nursing);

I am an anesthesiologist and neuroscientist. I would lobby that a significant portion of this funding be designated for hospital based specialties that are unlikely to receive gifts from grateful patients. I have personally cared for 3 donors that gave substantial gifts to UCSF but all went to other departments despite efforts to make a connection with the donors. One of these I cared for on several occasions but no-one remembers their anesthesiologist. It's how we have designed our practice but puts us at a significant disadvantage for making a connection with potential donors. Without our care most procedures and operations would be a wildly different experience and probably impossible to perform, yet few if any donors recall the person who managed all aspects of their physiology, keeping them alive while they were asleep.

Equally distributed among departments for chairmen to use to recruit and retain faculty.

on site child care for faculty and housestaff and staff

The rapidly aging U.S. and global populations pose one of the greatest immediate and long-term challenges to our health care system and to the health of older adults. Most health care providers receive relatively little training in the unique approach to care that older adults, particularly those with multiple chronic conditions and functional limitations require. I would recommend that aging and the training of health care providers to appropriately care for older adults be made a priority for this funding.

Health science education underlies all the missions of UCSF, both clinical and scientific. Without high-quality education to train the leaders of tomorrow, advances in science and clinical care for patients will be limited. Health sciences education is a particular strength at UCSF, yet opportunities for extramural funds for serious education research are limited. For UCSF to continue to lead the way in health sciences education, we must support faculty and trainees who desire a career as an educator. I would therefore propose that health sciences education - both research and supporting faculty time for education - be among the funding priorities for this amazing gift from the Helen Diller Foundation.

(1) Support for the efforts of faculty who teach and mentor the leaders of tomorrow--efforts that compromise faculty productivity (research, clinical, community engagement) and may be limited by external forces due to this reality.
(2) Wellness resources for all faculty who sacrifice daily without the rewards often reaped by non-UC peer counterparts.

Scale up the John Watson Scholars Program to recruit and retain more minority faculty

Educators often make lower salaries than faculty involved in research. Yet educators work many extra hours, not only in preparing for direct teaching (which is usually done on faculty's own time), but also in committee work, curriculum development, communicating with students and answering questions 24/7, supporting students' needs, etc. It would be wonderful if educators salaries were supplemented to account for the many extra hours they put in. Also, educators often do not have funds available to cover the cost of attending education conferences to share the wonderful work they're doing and learn from others in the field. It would be very helpful to have more funds available for travel to meetings and professional development for educators at all levels.

Support for faculty unlikely to receive targeted donations or other funding sources.

AGING- the population is getting older and the clinical needs will be different for this population. SF is the 17th oldest city in the country. Clinical programs to care for this population would be needed and multidisciplinary education for all disciplines on how to care for this different population.

Bridge funding for faculty as the environment for external funds becomes more and more difficult

As a member of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, I have been frustrated by my inability to identify grateful patients as potential donors. I believe you'll find a similar experience in Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Emergency Medicine, and Laboratory Medicine. As a group, we have watched as large donations come to the University, and essentially never benefit the hospital-based departments. The grateful patients' experience could not occur without the support of our departments, but understandably patients identify their experience with a surgeon, internist, pediatrician, or other specialist with whom they have significant face time. I propose that at least some proportion of these large gifts be considered for the benefit of hospital-based departments, without whom, their excellent care would not occur

As Chair of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, I have attempted over the years to raise funding for endowed chairs related to imaging with little success. All of the so-called hospital-based departments, Radiology, Anesthesia, Emergency Department, Radiation Oncology, Lab Medicine, and Pathology, suffer from not having access to grateful patients. Yet our work is essential for the clinical operations of UCSF Health. We should have priority in access to funding from this wonderful gift.

I would favor distributing the endowed chairs to the departments and ORUs based on the number of current faculty in each, and letting them decide best how to assign them. A one size fits all approach is less favorable in my view.

The HIV division at ZSFG is world-class, but it is unlikely that a significant donation would ever come from a Ward 86 patient, given that the clinic population is either publically insured or uninsured. Finding sustained support for both the clinical and research endeavors of faculty is challenging. Funds of this sort would allow the division to remain a leader in cutting-edge biological and behavioral research as well as a leader in clinical care.

I am grateful to the Helen Diller Foundation. I feel that this fund should be allocated to faculty whose work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them.

Supper underrepresented minority faculty for at least 80% of their FTE and for at least 3 years of their service

Retention of faculty: possibly UCSF can invest in real estate so that junior faculty can have resources to lease housing within the city at an affordable pricing

Creation of novel translational science incubators for early-career physician bench scientists.
The transition from semi-independent K awardee working in a mentor's lab to independent laboratory PI is a point at which UCSF loses or is at high risk of losing many junior faculty. The traditional start-up package and proprietary lab space are difficult for many department/divisions to provide, and overseeing a diverse modern laboratory carries a high financial and time cost to the PI. The current model is akin to each physician in a clinic hiring their own receptionist, clinic manager, phlebotomist, and X-ray technician, while personally managing safety regulations and accreditation. An alternative structure might be to create a collaborative environment for several PIs within the same division/department or with similar areas of focus, to share space, equipment, and core personnel. Funds would provide for the arrangement of an appropriate physical space, as well as startup packages for 2-4 PIs, which would be used primarily for 1) PI salary support, 2) metered support of the incubator laboratory, 3) expenses for experiments done at other core facilities (e.g. genomics, imaging), 4) additional PI-specific resources. Support from each PI for the incubator can wax and wane over time with need and funding. Highly successful examples of this arrangement exist, but primarily in non-bench disciplines such as epidemiological research. The fundamental goal of this arrangement is to permit physician-scientist PIs to "work up to their license" by spending more time designing studies and coordinating with other physician researchers, while reducing the substantial and often duplicative overhead of each PI maintaining the capability for molecular, cellular, animal, and human research. The hope is that this could result in more productive and efficient use of research resources, as well as an acceleration of innovative bench-to-bedside translational research.

Re-imagining clinical care that will optimize aging and provide medical care in the home and in communities.

Faculty support for medical education is a critical need and should be a priority. I also think under-represented minority faculty should be a priority.

I don't know if this can be financed under the effort to endow faculty salaries, but perhaps this could be done in conjunction with efforts of the Academy of Educators: we are in dire need of a classroom teaching building specifically for the School of Medicine. With the rollout of the innovative Bridges curriculum, and parallel changes in other professional schools such as Pharmacy, and construction in the C-building and U-building, we are very short on small group breakout classrooms. Small groups are integral to the successful rollout of Bridges, and we are competing with other schools for the use of the CL rooms on the 2nd floor of the library, and any available seminar rooms in the S-building and other buildings. For a recent small group necessitating 12 facilitators total, my colleagues were placed in HSW lecture halls and departmental seminar rooms in the N-building. I worked with my administrative assistant to find new rooms for these facilitators where possible. I think a new classroom building is a high priority need.

priority for this funding should go to supporting early career faculty that is working on improving AGING care.

Some of the fund should be used to help faculty (medical and dental areas) who treat a large population of pediatric medical and dental patients covered by Medicaid and DentiCal as these public assisted insurances reimbursed at 30% of the PPO fee schedules for specific treatments/services. These faculty are responsible for salaries/benefits expenses of all the supporting staff (ie. biller, front desk, dental and medical assistants, etc) in their faculty practices, yet their financial productivity is often low despite the fact that they see a large volume each day due to the low rate of reimbursement from these government insurance for low incomes and special-needs patients. This will help to reduce financial stress for the faculty while they are working very hard to serve their pediatric patients.

As a member of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, I have been frustrated by my inability to identify grateful patients as potential donors. I believe you'll find a similar experience in Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Emergency Medicine, and Laboratory Medicine. As a group, we have watched as large donations come to the University, and essentially never benefit the hospital-based departments. The grateful patients' experience could not occur without the support of our departments, but understandably patients identify their experience with a surgeon, internist, pediatrician, or other specialist with whom they have significant face time. I propose that at least some proportion of these large gifts be considered for the benefit of hospital-based departments, without whom, their excellent care would not occur.

As the population ages, there is a critical need to support faculty focused on conducting clinical work, research, and program development related to serving our aging population. Specifically:

1) conducting aging research (biological, social, behavioral, policy, clinical, bioethics, and health services) to learn how older adults can advance into very old age free of disability AND how to improve the well-being of older adults who are coping with serious medical conditions or approaching the end of life;
2) providing specialized multidisciplinary education and training to care for growing number of older persons;
3) re-imagining clinical care that will optimize aging and provide medical care in the home and in communities.

1) Identification, recruitment, and retention of outstanding under-represented minority faculty.
2)Support for a Geriatric Center of Excellence around including innovative care delivery models , as well as, basic science research.

A critical area of need is faculty focused on education, research and program development for older adults facing serious illness.

As a member of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, I have observed that we never have grateful patients as potential donors. I understand that patients identify their experience with a surgeon, internist, pediatrician, or other specialist with whom they have significant face time. However, a grateful patient's experience could not occur without the support of other departments (such as Anesthesia, Radiology, Lab Medicine, Emergency Medicine). Therefore, I propose that at least some proportion of these large gifts be considered for the benefit of hospital-based departments, without whom, their excellent care would not occur.

Since many of us are primarily funded by NIH and since our UCSF salaries exceed the NIH salary cap, it would be nice if the university provided funds to faculty to help us cover this "NIH gap." Right now, I need to perform additional clinical and administrative duties to cover my gap, which detracts from my research.

Creating more financial support for clinician-educators. For example, providing additional opportunities such as the Chancellor's Fund to provide support to take outside courses and attend conferences, even if not presenting work. In addition, can we find ways to provide salary support for direct teaching in medical school courses or in resident/fellow curricula? There are leadership positions that provide funding, but a lot of fabulous direct teaching is done without any support. Even offering a small percentage (even 1 or 2%) for faculty who do multiple lectures and/or small group sessions could increase the feeling of support, appreciation, and well-being among this faculty group.

There is a tremendous need to support faculty whose focus is on aging. This is an area of medicine that is often overlooked but the aging population is a large portion of the medical center's service population. With the growing number of older adults, we need to support faculty time spent on medical and interprofessional education focused on aging, in order to care for older adults in the future. There should be support on conducting aging research of different aspect (biological, social, behavioral, policy, clinical, bioethics, health services and translational) to improve our understanding on how older adults may advance into the very old with limited disability and how to improve the well-being of older adults living with chronic and serious medical conditions, including those approaching end of life. There should also be support to restructure clinical care that will take the complexity of the care into consideration, so that we can optimize aging and provide medical care in the home and in the communities.

early career faculty, and faculty where targeted donations are unlikely (hospital-based faculty like anesthesia, pathology, radiology)

I recommend that a substantial focus be on the needs of older adults. We have woefully underresourced clinical programs and research support, particularly for vulnerable older adults-- such as homebound, living alone, and with dementia. Over 50% of non-white older adults cannot make ends meet and 30% of white older adults cannot make ends meet. Poverty, and as a result poor health, are huge issues. Clinical programs and research that address this are desperately needed in SF.

The basic science faculty are really struggling - many pay all/almost all of their salaries from grants, and as costs go up and grant funding rates go down, too much time is spent raising one's own salary. The Department of Medicine recently began supplementing salaries for researchers in residence at the associate professor level, which they determined was the rank most squeezed by the current system. Also unlikely to receive support from grateful patients. I recommend extending this to other departments and schools.

Social and policy science faculty and others whose work is innovative and unlikely to attract grateful patients

Faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them (e.g., an endowment from a grateful patient, etc.).

Ranked in order of priority:
1-recruiting URM but not other new faculty; 2-faculty that are unlikely to receive targeted donation; 3-bridge funds for mid-career faculty;4-full or partial salary support for faculty that run core facilities; 5-salary support for faculty that spend more than 20% of their time teaching (graduate and professional) or related (e.g. curriculum reform).

Early career faculty

Faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them

I would recommend an educational research grant endowment that faculty could apply for funds to do educational research scholarship (especially as it pertains to health disparity research, interprofessional collaboration and team based care). Additionally, UCSF would benefit from full time faculty support in the program for interprofessional education and collaboration. Thank you for asking this question~

Tremendous need to support faculty focused on Aging...1) conducting aging research (biological, social, behavioral, policy, clinical, bioethics, and health services) to learn how older adults can advance into very old age free of disability AND how to improve the well-being of older adults who are coping with serious medical conditions or approaching the end of life; 2) providing specialized multidisciplinary education and training to care for growing number of older adults; 3) re-imagining clinical care that will optimize aging and provide medical care in the home and in communities.

All of the above. We could also use these for partial support (like two 0.5 FTE instead of one 1.0 FTE)

The Department of Radiation Oncology treats over 60% of patients with cancer, offering expertise in all areas of adult and pediatric malignancies. We develop and deliver the highest technical levels of radiation therapy in all modalities. As a hospital based program, we do not have equal opportunity with our surgical and medical colleagues in fostering philanthropy. We, and other like departments such as Radiology, Anesthesia and Peri-Op, Emergency Medicine and Pathology share a common disadvantage in this regard. Philanthropy plays an increasingly critical role in allow us to maintain high academic standards, and continue to innovate, discover and improve clinical care. Without this support, we stand to lose ground, which would be a loss for patients, colleagues at UCSF, and our respective disciplines nationwide. We endorse career faculty support across the spectrum, particularly for physician-scientists.

women and early career faculty. Almost no endowed chairs come to women.

Early career faculty.

Early career faculty and the biostatistics faculty (no grateful patients and no under- and graduate-students to help support their work)

all faculty should receive salary support from this award since the UCSF salaries are very low compared to other R1 institutions.

Priorities should be on retaining underrepresented minority faculty and faculty whose research focuses directly on underrepresented minority communities and has a strong beneficial impact on those communities.

I recommend mid-career faculty support. There is a big gap between all the early career incentives and full professorship

Funding to help support projects on federal grants that are going to be weakened by cutbacks caused by the current political environment (eg, HIV, STIs, contraception,health services research)

Early career support, faculty retention, bridge funding

In this economic climate, the goal should be to provide consistent salary support for basic science faculty.

I think each of these are important areas and that the support should be distributed in a balanced portfolio

Early career faculty, particularly PhD faculty that do not have the opportunity to teach or perform a clinical service to subsidize their salary.

Endowments for existing faculty with clinical research missions to support clinical research program building which takes time/effort but doesn't get covered (unless the faculty has a chair.)

Add tenure track positions for all ranks across all schools (medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy)
Add annualized effort (say 5%) or dollar support to be used for any purpose for each faculty member in the campus to use towards any purpose at any time (non-taxed by schools).

As Chair of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care, I have been frustrated by my inability to identify grateful patients as potential donors. I believe you'll find a similar experience in Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Emergency Medicine, and Laboratory Medicine. As a group, we have watched as large donations come to the University, and essentially never benefit the hospital-based departments. The grateful patients' experience could not occur without the support of our departments, but understandably patients identify their experience with a surgeon, internist, pediatrician, or other specialist with whom they have significant face time. I propose that at least some proportion of these large gifts be considered for the benefit of hospital-based departments, without whom, their excellent care would not occur.

I would recommend great flexibility and multiple categories for potential use, including: recruitment and retention of outstanding faculty; early support of promising junior faculty; support of promising research that has less opportunity to receive governmental or grateful patient funding (one example would be gun violence), and support for the occasional promising "wild card" project.

Educators and teachers in the School of Medicine. Clinicians and educators who train the next generation of workforce for older persons. Clinical models that care for the seriously ill, the elderly, and those at the end of life in the home and communities.

Support for clinicians and researchers engaged in teaching. Part time teachers are currently not supported for their important role in UME, GME.

early career faculty, under-represented minority faculty, and housing solutions for faculty or visiting scholars

sub-specialty faculty (unique skills)

All of the above are important. I believe that smaller schools are under-funded in this regard and should be given a larger proportion of the endowment funds compared with SOM that has both significantly more endowed faculty as well as a much higher pay line for these endowments. Use of these discretionary funds in this way would significantly even the playing field and enable transdiscplinary research and education to thrive at UCSF.

Primarily to recruit top targets of chairs/directors for whom we are competing against institutions with far deeper pockets. Secondarily, demographic-oriented like early/mid career, URMs, advocacy-oriented, management/systems oriented, who have already demonstrated incredible promise.

under-represented minority faculty early in their career as a recruiting tool

Early career faculty in nursing

Spread somewhat evenly around Departments, possibly with a focus on those unlikely to receive targeted donations (basic science departments, pathology, lab medicine, radiology, anesthesia, etc., pharmacy, dental and nursing schools). Should probably be used for faculty without state FTE support.

URM, women faculty with child-bearing or child-rearing responsibilities, mid career faculty with proven track record (pubs, multiple R01s) for salary support

I would love to see money earmarked for faculty educators - junior and senior, with a particular focus on URM faculty

I think this should go to more senior faculty who are unlikely to receive a targeted gift. Junior faculty generally have salary support for at least a few years and have lower salaries that are easier to make up with portions of a grant. This becomes more and more difficult for tenured / more senior faculty. Ideally, once someone was promoted to Associate they would get a small endowed chair which would be increased upon promotion to Full Professor.

A portion should be allocated to those departments , largely hospital based, who do not have face time with patients, but whose support brings better care- Radiology, Pathology, Anesthesia, Lab Medicine and Rad Onc. These depts contribute greatly to the welfare of our patients, but do not have access to grateful patients to the same degree as other clinic based departments.

I would strongly advocate for support of both early career faculty as well as those from whom a targeted donation is very unlikely. I would also advocate support for over the cap salary assistance- this is an increasingly difficult gap for many NIH funded faculty at UCSF to address

We have a fantastic program that exists to support under-represented minority faculty. That should be maintained.
There is much social and community impact work within SFHN/DPH and ZSFG by UCSF faculty that will not lead to donation. For those individuals to be sustained, that is to maintain their focus on investigation and answering questions rigorously (getting funding), they would benefit from having faculty support.

early career faculty support, basic research support, graduate program support would be helpful as it's easier for new faculty to train good students than to recruit good postdocs

a certain percentage across the board for early career faculty, with additional support for faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them

Early career faculty get their startup funds, under-represented minority faculty are in the center of attention whereas faculty who do not have patient access aren't getting any chance for support/endowment. A portion of the philanthropic gift should go to the latter category of faculty.

High risk research unlikely to be funded by NIH but potential for high impact, research support for clinicians interested in research collaborations with basic researchers to increase translational research efforts

I believe the endowment should be used to support junior faculty, in particular junior faculty to get started at UCSF, and transition from mentored to independent awards (early associate professors). In addition, it would be important for retention for the campus to dedicate some resources to covering the over-the-cap portion of salary conducting research for more senior faculty. Of course the campus should actively promote the recruitment of URMs as well as their retention.

Most UCSF faculty in academic series (eg. in residence) are in need of salary relief; I suggest all academic series faculty receive 0.2FTE salary support. Beyond that programs could target faculty in need under spacial circumstances for additional support.

URM faculty and startups for research faculty who would be entirely on soft money (i.e. PhD scientists)

under-represented minority faculty; more pilot money for research that is open to all faculty

would recommend priorities for under-represented minority faculty and faculty whose field off work, such as LGBT health issues and immigrant health, would make it unlikely to receive a targeted donation or to get significant Federal funding during the current administration

Faculty are supported by strong cores that supply discrete expertise in areas that complement each of our research programs. A major deficit in our funding and support of research critical 'cores' is the ability to supply meaningful support mechanisms for highly-skilled core personnel. I would either propose endowments that support part of these salaries (to be applied for in the most senior cases), a bonus pool, based on year-end merit (to counteract the suck which industry exerts on these people) and/or the establishment of a salary 'insurance' fund which helps cores and core-like facilities to provide at least 5 year 'tenure', particular in years of minor budget shortfalls to cores. This will have a major long-term influence on the health of our cores and the quality of our mission-critical technical staff. This could be achieved by the combination of a starting endowment together with modest 'taxes' to a 'Essential Profession Staff' fund within cores and other billing procedures.

faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them, such as family planning (contraception and abortion research and advocacy)

Mid-career, associate, level faculty member should be considered, as very little support is given to this group. This is particularly true for research activities.

Many of these ideas seem worthy. I recommend supporting faculty based on the merit of their research programs, which help keep our best faculty at UCSF.

1)Early career under-represented minority faculty; 2) faculty working with health disparities issues and with under-served minority populations

Absolutely prioritize women, under every rank and step. Women are under-represented in our faculty. In addition, endow faculty salaries for under-represented minorities.
This will be the only way UCSF will be able to recruit and retain the diversity of faculty it so desires - it's time to put your money where your mouth is.

Support for early career faculty; support for over the cap funding and/or bridge funding.

All of the above are important. I am partial to the last group, however, as working with vulnerable and low income patients makes an endowment from a grateful patient unlikely.

Retention of productive senior faculty who are unlikely to receive a targeted donation.

1) Something akin to Dept of Medicine iRAPS program for Assoc Professors in Residence
2) Enhancing the RAP grants. Ideally these should be "counter-cyclical" to the NIH. When NIH funding goes down, additional RAP money should be made available, and when NIH funding goes up, RAP money should go down.
2)

A chronic underfunded but critical role for faculty at UCSF is education. Both junior faculty who as distinguishing themselves as outstanding teachers and senior master educators do this work despite RVU and research pressures. Support for these roles is a real and critical need. Philanthropy from grateful patients to support education and educators is not common as they are more likely to support clinical programs and research.

I believe priority is early career faculty but there are full professors who are being recruited to other universities or retiring out of our system to join another. Since junior faculty often come to a university to work with senior faculty, more incentives should also be given to productive, full professor.

More grants for faculty to fund their research

A critical gap in research faculty support is the over-the-cap salary gap: a substantial proportion of faculty have a salary that is over the NIH cap of $185,100, placing us in the untenable position of needing to find extra tens-of-thousands of dollars over and above the effort we're devoting to extramural grants. This structural problem is growing and is not going away. It is a recruiting problem, and saps morale. I strongly recommend that a portion of the gift be set aside as an endowment to fund the OTC gap for all in-residence and ladder rank faculty. If UCSF salaries are to mean anything, UCSF must take action to address this structural problem affecting all researchers here. I would prefer that all research faculty get some benefit from this large gift to ameliorate a shared problem, rather than having only a few faculty benefit with endowments.

Additionally, we can expect that technology will be transforming many parts of health care in the coming years. Primary care is the first and ongoing point of contact for most patients, and mobile and Internet technologies promise transformation but at risk of exacerbating disparities, and of depersonalizing the therapeutic relationship. UCSF Division of General Internal Medicine is launching a "Primary Care Clinic of the Future" initiative that is an important opportunity for leadership. Because DGIM serves primarily underserved and marginalized populations, DGIM is less likely to be the recipient of targeted donations for this type of work.

Support for early career faculty; faculty retention; and under-represented minority faculty.

Inter-disciplinary scientists

Spiritual Care for Parkinson's disease and related disorders.

Early career faculty, faculty working on global health or public health projects that historically are difficult to fund while junior faculty

There are many worthwhile causes when it comes to supporting faculty. Faculty at all levels face very real challenges with regard to housing affordability. Salary uncertainty makes this worse, because many faculty are stretched to their limits financially and could not tolerate a dip in salary if funding falls short one year. We have Full Professors here on 100% soft money spending 100% of their salaries to cover their family's expenses each month. This is not sustainable. Recruitment and retention of a more diverse faculty is also a major unmet need for our university. Most faculty who see patients will never receive a targeted donation no matter how grateful their patients are, so singling out a group (e.g. non-clinician basic scientists) for funding support feels somewhat arbitrary and would have to be considered carefully.

I think this funding should be available to all levels of faculty - there are plenty of mid-to-senior level faculty that could use funding help, given the current funding climate. I think an RFP should be issued, and anyone who is interested should be able to apply.

Faculty whose type of work makes donation unlikely

Early career faculty, and basic science faculty who would be unlikely to receive an endowment.

Early career, female, and under-represented minority faculty.

under-represented minority faculty, and faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them (e.g., an endowment from a grateful patient, etc.).

faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them, In Residence and Adjunct faculty who are largely NIH grant supported

Considering the funding climate, non-MD, PhDs are most vulnerable to run out salary. In particular during the transition from startup support to completely independent funding.

I think that it should be used to give "breathing room" to faculty or divisions who have disproportionate #s of medical patients without procedures associated but with high scholarly productivity.

Provide a fund to keep senior faculty at UCSF - provide matching funds for recruitment packages from outside universities

It is important to make sure our junior faculty are supported. I would support a minority faculty development program to support junior faculty from URM groups. This would improve the representation of URMs on the faculty.

This is a serious area that UCSF needs to improve.

under represented minority faculty and junior faculty. Finding some way to make our faculty reflective of the population we serve has to be a major priority. Additionally, working to combat the quickly rising cost of living for those just starting their careers will ensure that we can compete (and not lose) for top talent.

I would support the use of these funds for early career faculty, under-represented minority faculty, and bridging funds

Junior faculty support for housing, child care, professional development courses, salary support for administrative assistance

established faculty with support could mentor many junior faculty

Early career - working directly with patients and conducting research, as clinicians struggle with the balance of research and clinical productivity... (even if they are primarily intended to be "research" faculty - end up with larger clinical loads because of difficulty obtaining grants in this funding climate..

I favor using funds for associate professors and professors, especially to help overcome gap in pay on NIH grants. Special consideration should be given to underserved minorities, outside recruits, but these should not be absolute requirements. Funds should be assigned for 3-5 year intervals, and not to one individual in perpetuity.

faculty retention of all kinds, housing stipends for new faculty, improve transportation amongst various sites

There are two critical areas that are in desperate needs of institutional support:

1. Support for non-state funded non-endowed (non-FTE) research faculty for their university services and teaching efforts. Majority of faculty at UCSF don't have FTE from the university or private endowment. non-FTE faculty is essential to the vibrancy of the research community at UCSF. UCSF would not have ranked top for grant funding and research output without the contribution from non-FTE faculty. non-FTE faculty also devotes efforts to University and governmental services and teaching. Much of the services or teaching are not for home department so departments don't have an obligation to pay for these activities. So essentially non-FTE faculty has to donate efforts for these required academic activities AND come up with their own non-grant support for these donated efforts. This system fails to recognize the contribution of non-FTE faculty to UCSF and does not make sense.

2. Support for core facilities that make state-of-the-art technologies available to UCSF investigators. This includes salary support for professional staff who manage and run core facilities. The following are some examples: the Parnassus cell culture core makes many reagents and media available on demand the same day. it keeps our research running nonstop, but it was closed recently due to a lack of institutional support for staff. The flow cytometry core runs 8am to midnight on most days, but keeps on losing staff to biotech companies around us and to Stanford because of drastic pay differences. The protein engineering core at SFGH is constantly busy securing grants to maintain staff when their talent and efforts could be better used engineering proteins for researchers throughout campus. The GMP facility at MCB is under-staffed because it is supported only by income from recharge. Cell therapy projects this facility supports have high fluctuation in volume thus high fluctuation in income. The current way of making sure we have income to cover staff salary is to have minimal staff and hire less experienced assistance for less pay. By doing so, we essentially ask less experienced staff to do more work, a dangerous practice in this highly competitive cutting-edge field.

It is often said that we should not expect cushy support at a public institution. With donation like this, it's time to support the backbone of this great institution - the faculty and technology they depend on.

under-represented minority faculty

Faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them.

raising the salary of all practitioners to at least the national mean

Female and URM physician-scientists

Clinical faculty, who do not have the opportunity for research money support

Faculty that are struggling to make the transition from K to R01 funding. Non-tenured faculty.

That is extremely exciting! I'd consider support for faculty doing work that otherwise is difficult to support (such as in abortion research, which is critical but especially hard to support consistently in the current political climate, and hard to sustain at all times what with the vagaries of presidential and NIH priorities). Helping URM and early-career faculty both also are important groups.

early and middle career faculty who primarily depend on competitive federal and state funding.

I very highly recommend part of this gift be used for Bridge Funding to support faculty whose productive research are in danger of ending due to loss of continued funding. NIH funding is very competitive and will most likely become much more difficult to obtain with the new federal government administration

Salary support is needed for mid-career faculty, who have not yet successfully obtained research grant funding after an initial R-series award. There is a steep curve between obtaining an initial R01 and progressing towards an expanded research portfolio. This is a critical career period, and these are uncertain times for funding. UCSF has lost several excellent Associate level researchers recently to other institutions that offer some support to help retain ensure success of mid-career faculty.

Endowments for early-career in-residence faculty who don't have any salary support through UCSF.

1. Faculty whose field or type of work makes it an unlikely target for donations, e.g. patient population that is disadvantaged on average.

I also think this should be used to retain senior faculty so they can continue living in the Bay Area when the costs outpace raises.

Promote the Primary Care Clinic of the Future / Personalized Primary Care. Needs: an endowed chair for someone with experience in practice transformation and health IT along with IT/programmer support. This would enhance to quality of care for our patients at UCSF, enhance the visibility of our primary care training program, enhance the clinic experience for the categorical and primary care residents in our clinic - many of whom are interested both in Mobile Health / Health IT and in personalized medicine. This fits with the Chair of Medicine's (Dr. Wachter) focus on leveraging technology in our practice, the Mobile Health work of Ida Sim, the big data work of Atul Butte, and the LEAN and other QI initiatives in primary care and the medical center as a whole. This initial investment has the potential to have a much larger ROI as it could attract significant attention from donors whose wealth and interests come from technology companies in the Bay Area. The initial focus would be the primary care clinics, but the benefits could be extended to all of our ambulatory practices and potentially to affiliated primary care practices around the Bay Area and to primary care clinics across the 5 UC Medical Centers.

retention and recruitment for outstanding faculty

K awards for early career faculty (support the CTSI K scholars program)

Some of the funding should be made available by application to faculty who reside in self supporting departments with low clinical revenues (poor RVU generators) to help support research, teaching, and other creative activities for at least 2 years duration (short funding periods or low budgets <$15,000 discourage creative efforts)

I think it should go towards the 5% for researches who need an extra 5% for teaching/administrative work and should be used for need where philanthropy is unlikely.

Established investigators for endowment and early career faculty support (in a form of which? endowment?) are very 'usual' ideas. What is significantly missing in many institutions including ours is the support for mid-career faculty members (someone who is at the Associate level or early full Professor level) who have been struggling to either survive or go for the next step to be one of the world leaders in their fields. Funding those will make our workplace much more attractive and people can think of long-term career decisions. I propose 0.5 FTE or 0.75 FTE (equivalent to state-supported faculty at academic departments at many UC campuses for PhD faculty) as an incentive to stay and advance their careers at UCSF to those who are at the most important moment of their academic careers, i.e., mid-level faculty members who are undergoing major promotions (from Assistant to Associate and from Associate to Full). There are many ways to fund junior investigators including many career development funding programs from NIH and other funding agencies. There are also ample opportunities for very established investigators (endowed chairs, larger and longer-lasting program projects, etc.), but there are very few funding supports available for this group of faculty. Basically all of the limited submission opportunities are on either extreme.

I would recommend prioritizing funding clinical teaching. I think in this day of fee for service medicine, and RVU expectations for faculty, that our clinical teaching is suffering. One cannot teach well and see the same number of patients as one can when not teaching. This means that students more often shadow than participate, because one would have to see fewer patients in order for a learner (at least a beginning learner) to be involved. I suggest giving faculty RVU support for teaching. For example, when I have a learner with me then expectation would be I would see 2 patients per hour rather than 3 patients per hour when I do not have a learner with me. This would allow me support and time to teach the learner.

It would be great if a portion of this fund could be set aside for campuses serving more vulnerable patient populations like ZSFG, as they have very very few grateful patients.

Not early career faculty. They already have many avenues of support. Mid level faculty are the ones who are hurting and need assistance. Another idea is those faculty without any hard salary support. There are faculty who have to bring in 100% of their salary. This makes them less competitive as compared to their colleagues within the university as well as less competitive among colleagues at other institutions. The NIH grant does not scale for how much salary is covered so at UCSF, a majority of research dollars is not going to support the actual research. You can pay for yourself but barely have enough money to pay for the research in terms of employees and supplies.. With the demands on the PI, it is not possible to also be the main generator of data along with our teaching, mentoring and administrative and scientific service (reviewing grants, manuscript, conference attendance, editorial duties at journals).

Fund collaboratories. Create opportunities for faculty from various campuses to create a team that works together in a single dedicated space. $ could be provide as limited matching funds. The other way to have a big impact would be to endow cores -- make it easy to employ and retain scientists who are not faculty, but who can enable everyone else's research.

Aside from recruitment and retention of under-represented faculty (which I think should be a major focus of this gift), I would suggest that priorities be identified at a departmental and even divisional level (at least in the SOM). Faculty face a myriad of different issues that are best addressed on a more local level by chairs and chiefs. I would us much of this money to endow discretionary "faculty support" funds for each department that is proportional to their faculty size and require each department to submit develop a plan for transparent and fair use of these funds to best support their faculty (with an emphasis on the support of women and minority faculty).

I think there should be 4 uses: 1) over the cap funding for any faculty who do not have discretionary funds or non-federal funds to encourage retention; 2) early career faculty who are underrepresented for their "gap" salary coverage on a K; 3) for faculty who perform mainly educational roles given the paucity of education funds; 4) for an RFA that Division Chiefs/Department Chairs can apply to for their faculty for special needs.

early career faculty

under-represented minority faculty

Early career faculty

Given recent departures of bench scientists from both clinical and basic departments (David Rowitch, Don Ganem, Francis Brodsky, Emanuelle Passague, Didier Stanier, Markus Muschen, etc,) would support faculty conducting innovative bench science that is clinically relevant.

Discretionary support for Associate and Full Professors in Residence engaged in clinical, epidemiological and implementation research.

Perhaps this could be targeted based on data, e.g. from the development office, on groups faculty who have been underrepresented in past donor funding for their research, whether it be women, minority, mid-level faculty who have aged out of early investigator opportunities and used up their start-up, or by department/degree/field.

I believe that it should go to departments that are unlikely to receive an endowment from a grateful patient to create a Chair that would allow them to recruit top talent in their field. It should also be used for faculty development of junior faculty who are looking for sources of funding for either teaching or research projects.

My primary request would be for greater transparency about who decides where the money goes. Unfortunately, history suggests that this division will not occur in a principled way.

Mid career faculty would benefit most because they are overlooked currently. Much effort and $$ is already put into launching new careers and in rewarding world renowned senior faculty. The problem is not the launch but staying in orbit, and lack of attention to this issue is further exacerbated by the UCSF practice of hiring PIs without a dedicated FTE and/or without salary support form clinical practice (for non MDs). An endowed salary awarded to mid-career faculty who have neither an FTE nor clinical income but who have nevertheless succeeded in winning the grants to run a research group would be hugely impactful. In most cases it would allow such labs to add 3-4 postdocs or graduate students immediately, which would pay rapid dividends in research productivity and the prospects for future funding.

I think it would be really important to provide resources for UIM faculty. Additionally, faculty who work in education, especially outside of medical school education have a very hard time gaining funding to support their education work and educational reserach.

All three examples are very worthwhile, and I myself am a faculty person who is unlikely to receive a targeted donation. But as a first priority, I would choose under-represented minority faculty. Funding support for worthy minority faculty would address the need for more minority faculty at UCSF, and at the same improve our clinical care, teaching, and research capabilities at UCSF.

Faculty who are unlikely to receive targeted donations.

Mid level career faculty that have a very strong trajectory but have hit a funding crisis. Such faculty are more likely to leave UCSF.

Establish funding for mid-level career leaders of essential programs to retain them at UCSF.

As a researcher who returned to research after having spent years raising my sons (as a single mother), I am finding it very challenging to restart my academic career after having spent years in non-profit work. While my research and publications are more consistent with "early career," my age is consistent with someone in later career. This puts me in a very challenging category in terms of securing research grants. For the past three years, I have been working full time (but in an adjunct WOS position) to try to re-establish my career. Travel funding and the majority of grants are earmarked for people who are employed 50% or more at UC--which means I do not meet the basic qualifications for trying to secure funding because I'm not paid faculty. I did receive RAP funding--which helped immensely in terms of launching my research project--but I have had no salary support (other than about $200/month for the year) and no benefits. My research assistants were making five times what I was making with the RAP. It would make a world of difference to someone like myself, who is very good at the work that I do and completely passionate about my work, to have some funds earmarked for researchers in these limbo categories. If I could have had at least a year or two of salary support, it would make an enormous difference in peace of mind, productivity, and ability to focus on the work and getting grants for future support.

Bridge funding
Support of physician scientists. This is a critical issues. In my field of work, physicians are largely no more interested in pursuing a research career. this is a big and worrisome change compared to the past

It seems to make sense to support early career faculty, especially in terms of recruiting to a city with cost of living that is increasingly prohibitive even to clinical faculty. It would make sense to offer more bridge funding to those between grants, or other mechanisms to support mid-career research—after all, for all our focus these days on RVUs above all else, what sets us apart from Kaiser is not clinical productivity; it is basic, translational, and clinical research. Generally speaking, it might be better to develop more competitive mechanisms—reflecting both need and merit—rather than have the criteria for "deserving" be simply set by some administrative office or another.

I would encourage use of the funds to build endowments for young faculty members to encourage career development (e.g., provide promising K awardees with endowments of maybe $500K to provide them with ongoing funds to carry them thru periods between grants and to help with research support. These could be structured to encourage career development and maybe be a nidus for a larger endowment as they mature thru the ranks. Happy to brainstorm further. Mel Heyman (415-476-0820)

1) Early career faculty who are determined to be valuable recruits by their Division and/or Department chairs to help offset initial salary support until regular NIH/other research or clinical leadership funding dollars are obtained.
2) Ensuring adequate faculty support for departmental and divisional quality, safety, value, patient experience, provider experience improvement work. Currently, most depts/divisions assign this work to a faculty member in an "unfunded" role, and this work is not sustainably done in this manner. This financial support would help reflect the institution's prioritization of this very important work that must be done in order to maintain UCSF as a leader in healthcare delivery.

recruitment of under-represented minority faculty, particularly Hispanics and significant career support launch

Support of early career faculty and funding during lapses in major NIH funding.

Priorities should be to support early career scientists, particularly bench scientists where NIH funding has diminished and is discouraging talented young scientists from pursuing an academic career.

This is an exciting opportunity and I appreciate that the Senate is seeking our input. To me the target should be mid-career faculty who are working on questions (eg health policy) that make them less competitive for standard funding sources (eg the NIH), particularly at sites that dont typically attract philanthropic funds (eg ZSFG or global health). Early career investigators have access to K awards, and late career individuals typically have stable funding sources, creating a mid-career chasm that the Helen Diller Foundation fund could help navigate.

Funding for salary for UCSF and affiliated (e.g., VA) faculty who are on soft money research positions. Or for bridge funding for covering salary between grants for faculty on soft money positions.

under-represented minority faculty

faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them.

Lab-based physician scientists at all levels face difficulty attracting philanthropic dollars because of limited exposure to patients. Additionally, with the growing disparity between the NIH "cap gap" and the cost of living in San Francisco, lab-based faculty are under enormous pressure not only to fund their own salary support, but also to pay postdoctoral fellows and graduate students a living wage. As a result, research dollars do not go very far at UCSF.

I also feel strongly that we need more diversity at the faculty level, and providing support to train, recruit and retain faculty who are from under-represented minority groups is very important.

MDs on UCSF faculty working as PI or Co-I on grants sponsored by Veterans Affairs are not allowed to receive salary support. I am one of them, required to find salary support elsewhere. UCSF could have a fond to pay MDs on VA grants.
Kind regards
Wolf Mehling, MD

early career faculty, with an emphasis on underrepresented groups (minorities, but also women)

I think that care should be taken to be sure that it is not all plowed into basic sciences where we are already very strong, but also some should be reserved for priorities such as education, clinical practice transformation, community engagement, addressing social and behavioral needs of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, and so forth, that may not always garner attention from donors but which are essential to our public mission.

1st priority:
faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them - e.g., radiologists
2nd priority: under-represented minority faculty

I would opt for "faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them (e.g., an endowment from a grateful patient, etc.)". "Early career faculty and under-represented minority faculty" have been targeted in other venues. The most 'under-targeted' are investigators in more obcure fields (i.e., not cancer, immunology, diabetes, or neuroscience).

1) seed funds for clinical trials with potential to lead to external grant support, particularly those with correlative science done at UCSF. 2) subsidization of cooperative group clinical trial execution, particularly in disease sites with UCSF active participation in trial design and/or correlative science. 3) Salary support for MDs with an operational and academic interest in quality improvement 4) Loan supplementation or signing bonus to make it possible to recruit mid-career faculty interested in department-building and cancer center-building

early career faculty especially whose field doesn't directly link to finding cures for diseases or too board to be limited to certain diseases, such as genetics and genomics.

URM faculty
Diversity leads in different departments

To support faculty who do important work but don't have wealthy grateful patients.

Endowed chairs for successful senior faculty as part of recruitment/retention. Not everyone has a "grateful patient".

Early career faculty, in particular for recruiting purposes and Associate and full Professor faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them, such as basic science faculty.

Faculty with a high degree of commitment and track record for basic/translatoinal research, but research time is threatened by competing clinical responsibilities

The three listed seem like the highest priorities: faculty working on areas unlikely to receive targeted funding but that have strategic importance to the mission of UCSF; under-represented minority faculty; early career faculty.

early career fauclty

faculty whose field or type of work makes it unlikely a targeted donation would come to them

URM faculty and early career faculty. Full disclosure, I'm both.

under-represented minority faculty and physician/scientists engaged in basic research two groups there is not enough of
- I think the greatest need is re mid level faculty (post first RO1) - no longer eligible for early career grants/funding, not always well known enough as professors

Matching funds for investigators at any stage who are successful in obtaining two or more NIH R01's (or equivalent). This will incentivize faculty, reward those faculty who are at the top of their fields, and ease the burden of decreasing funding levels from NIH, all serving to bolster faculty support, morale, and retention.

Minority faculty retention

I suggest a strong focus on early career faculty -- to support current faculty and attract new hires.

For early career faculty

UIM faculty, salary gap funding for faculty who cannot fill gap with clinical work (like ZSFG because of SFDPH affiliation agreement), and clin-educ early faculty

Highest priority should be physician-scientists. The NIH salary cap makes it very hard for them to support themselves.

I think there should be strategically-focused endowed professorships to retain and recruit faculty. As a senior faculty member at UCSF, there are few such resources to help us stay at UCSF. This is a great opportunity to remedy that.

support for release time to develop and implement innovative teaching models.

Dedicating some funds to support projects through RAP would be really beneficial, particularly if the grants could be of adequate size (e.g., $100k) to allow for completion of strong pilot projects on innovative ideas. It would be helpful to allow faculty to take salary support through these grants. K awardees and other early career faculty could particularly benefit from these funds.