Yale has a rich history of leveraging sustainable and collaborative partnerships to fulfill its mission of transforming education. Its relationship with the University College London (UCL) exemplifies this tradition.

The Yale UCL Collaborative was launched in 2009 by the heads of the two universities and their affiliated hospital systems. It is a faculty-led initiative for the development of novel ideas made possible by the complementarity of resources between two great universities.  The goals of the Yale UCL Collaborative are to: increase the scope and quality of creativity, secure joint funding for shared initiatives, foster the most efficient use of resources, and enrich both institution’s communities.

The Collaborative promotes faculty workshops and retreats, visits for lectures and symposia (through the Senior Scientist Lecture Series and informal visits), student exchanges, joint projects, and joint grant submissions, among other activities. It aims to increase the number of individuals with connections between the institutions with an eye toward unexpected opportunities. 

Cooperation originated in cardiovascular medicine, expanding to other biomedical fields and subsequently to other disciplines, including engineering, history, philosophy, and law. Approximately 75 Yale faculty members (and a similar number at UCL) have been involved at various stages. Student opportunities have continued to expand with a steady flow of Yale and UCL Ph.D. students spending time at the other institution as part of a special graduate student exchange program.

One success story from the Collaborative is the Inherited Cardiomyopathy Disease Program, which provides comprehensive evaluation of patients and families with inherited cardiomyopathies, arrhythmias, vascular diseases, and coronary and metabolic syndromes. The program has been clinically successful, establishing new joint research and training initiatives, and expanding from treating four patients to over 1,200. 

In addition to partnerships in the biomedical sciences and engineering, the Yale UCL Collaborative has also influenced the study of social sciences, humanities, law and architecture at the two universities.

Primary points of contact for the Yale UCL Collaborative are Clement Leroy at UCL (c.leroy@ucl.ac.uk) and Asia Neupane at Yale (asia.neupane@yale.edu).