Office of the Dean
Date January 26, 2024
All News

BIRCH Update

By Dean Ashish K. Jha

I am writing to you today to provide an update about BIRCH, the Brown Innovation and Research Collaborative for Health. BIRCH has made tremendous progress this past year toward integrating the research portfolios of Lifespan, Care New England, and Brown. We are on track to implement a new operational model later this calendar year.

To achieve this crucial goal, Brown’s vice president for research will join BIRCH’s Joint Executive Council, replacing the dean of the School of Public Health as a voting member. SPH will also pause administrative integration into BIRCH at this time, as Brown focuses attention on integrating the hospital-based research infrastructure with our University.

The representation of the Office of the Vice President for Research is a good, right next step for our school, for BIRCH, and for the University. The office represents the broadest research interests of the University, and having this office’s leadership is an essential element to getting this integration right. Naturally, SPH will continue to provide critical input on BIRCH through an internal Brown executive committee, led by the provost. And, as BIRCH proceeds, we will continue to build with flexibility and desired outcomes in mind. 

At the heart of BIRCH is our commitment to improving the health of people in Rhode Island and the world. We hope to do so through groundbreaking research performed by diverse teams in our medicine and public health community, bringing together hospital-based scholars, lab scientists, public health experts, and others. The structures we are building collectively through the BIRCH process will lower barriers to collaboration and enable excellence and innovation, elevating the profile of our University and state as a key player in biomedical and health research.

BIRCH is a multi-year effort to create an integrated administrative structure for biomedical and public health research in our community, streamlining research operations so that faculty, students, and healthcare providers can effectively collaborate and succeed with cutting-edge research in biomedicine and public health. You may remember that BIRCH moves in phases: A first milestone was the signing of the Aligned Research Collaboration Agreement in October 2022. A second milestone was the naming of BIRCH and the launch of phase 2 in spring 2023, ushering in administrative and financial planning under the oversight of BIRCH’s Joint Executive Council. 

All of us in the Dean’s Office are looking forward to working with the Office of the Vice President for Research and the BIRCH coalition in this next phase of research integration, continuing our efforts to improve the health of people in Rhode Island and all over the world.

Sincerely,

Jha signature

Ashish K. Jha M.D., MPH
Dean, School of Public Health
Professor of Health Services, Policy, and Practice