Engaging Globally
“Through our collaborative engagement with communities all over the world, Penn is poised to advance the central values of democracy: life, liberty, opportunity, and mutual respect.” -President Amy Gutmann, inaugural address, 2004
Advancing global inquiry. Prominent research universities must play an important role in addressing complex issues that affect the world. Penn generates knowledge and expertise about problems such as global infectious disease, environmental sustainability, and rapid responses to humanitarian disasters.
- In 2002, Penn Medicine built a small program to train local healthcare providers in Botswana, which had one of Africa’s highest HIV/AIDS infection rates. Today, Penn’s broad, interdisciplinary health-focused program serves as a model for the university’s future global engagement. Penn has partnered with the University of Botswana to construct the country’s first medical school and helped establish an NIH-funded Center for AIDS Research.
- The T.C. Chan Center of the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design, is dedicated to connecting corporations with schools, students with professionals working in sustainability, energy, building design, simulation, architecture and the environment. The Center seeks to encourage collaboration between individuals and institutions interested in the technological, research and policy challenges related to making a more sustainable world.
- Founded in 1992, the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania is the first research institution in the United States dedicated to the study of contemporary India. A national resource, it fills an urgent need for objective knowledge of India's politics and society, rapidly changing economy, and transformation as both an ancient civilization and major contemporary power.
Promoting academic partnerships. Great 21st-century universities such as Penn must engage dynamically with communities all over the world.
- Penn’s 242 academic partnerships extend to Africa, China, India, Latin America and beyond.
- In China alone, where Penn has a growing alumni base, each of Penn’s 12 schools has partnered with a Chinese institution of higher education-with 45 total partnerships between Penn and Chinese universities.
- The number of Penn students who study abroad has grown by 45 percent since 2004, and our global network of more than 27,000 alumni continues to expand.
Embracing a global exchange of ideas. Penn's nearly 5,300 international students come from more than 120 countries, and Penn draws the most eminent scholars from around the world.
- International enrollment has grown steadily since 2004; Penn has one of the largest populations of international students in the Ivy League.
- Applications from around the globe are up by 143 percent since 2004, with the largest increases coming from China and India, where enrollment has increased more than two-fold since 2004.