CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Carle Illinois College of Medicine (CI MED) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is leading a first-of-its-kind global network to revolutionize healthcare through engineering-based solutions to health problems around the world.
The Global Consortium for New Healthcare Innovation and Engineering is an international public-private-government collaboration that aims to leverage expertise across disciplines and geographic boundaries to accelerate the development of innovative solutions that impact human health.
Combining the expertise of medical and engineering schools, universities, researchers and students, industry and government leaders, philanthropists and foundations, the consortium is well positioned to drive innovation in medicine and medical education. The consortium is based on the same vision that founded Carle Illinois College of Medicine in 2015 as the world’s first engineering-based medical school. By integrating interdisciplinary perspectives of technology, engineering, innovation and medicine, the CI MED model aims to more effectively prepare the next generation of physician-innovators to make an impact in their local communities and around the world.
Mark Cohen
“More than 40 medical schools around the world (including several here in the U.S.) are now developing curricula, programs, courses, and even new medical schools designed from this new interdisciplinary perspective of medicine, engineering, and innovation,” said CI MED Dean Mark Cohen. “Our shared goal is to adapt medical education and learners to the technology-soaked world we now live in, and to educate a new type of physician specially trained to build and lead interdisciplinary teams that can better solve medical problems with engineering and entrepreneurial thinking.”
By accessing global data networks and improving the global process of regulatory data collection, the consortium will create a powerful framework for global student exchanges, faculty research, and streamlined, cost-effective processes for conducting clinical trials of breakthrough therapeutics. With the participation of industry and government leaders, innovations emerging from the consortium will be efficiently developed and implemented, accelerating their impact for the benefit of society.
CI MED has developed relationships with and helped launch the global consortium with several top international medical schools and institutions, including National Yang Ming Jiao Tong University (NYCU) in Taiwan, National Taiwan University, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) in Singapore, University of Rome Medical School in Rome, Italy, Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan, Indian Institute of Technology Gangwal School of Medical Technology in Kanpur, India, and University of Pretoria in South Africa. In addition to these universities and many in the United States, dozens of public, private, and government organizations participated in a recent kick-off meeting to explore the opportunities and benefits of joining this unique collaboration.
A showcase for the consortium’s work will be an annual Global Summit. The inaugural one will take place April 6-8, 2025 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, convening international medical innovation leaders and world-class medical education experts in Illinois. “At the Summit, we will host the first-ever Global Health Grand Innovation Challenge competition, in which our medical students, leading multidisciplinary student teams, will compete against the most innovative student teams from the world’s top universities to propose solutions to key challenges in global health. The winning solutions will be piloted and validated across this new global network,” said Cohen.
The pitch competition will address health challenges such as AI applications to improve outcomes in rural and underserved areas; solutions to improve early detection or slow the progression of chronic diseases such as cancer, dementia, heart disease, diabetes, infectious diseases, childhood diseases and conditions in older populations; and the development of low-cost diagnostic, device and treatment solutions that can be scalable globally.
The winning solution announced in the Global Health Grand Innovation Challenge competition will be awarded funding to pilot and validate the solution across a new global network of medical schools and hospitals, with insights and guidance from industry and regulators. This approach will enable rapid delivery of new solutions to the bedside to benefit patients in Illinois and around the world.
Cohen said philanthropic support for global health issues is crucial to increasing the consortium’s impact and its ability to bring groundbreaking solutions to clinical practice for real societal benefit.
Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign represents a new concept in healthcare education with innovation as a core curriculum and an emphasis on human factors, design thinking, medical technology and entrepreneurship. Founded in 2015 as a partnership between the University of Illinois and Carle Health System, the college offers a wide range of programs, from basic medicine to medicine.
