Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior to Report to Office of Research and Creative Activities

Dear Colleagues:

This fall, UCLA will launch a new strategic plan that advances several high-level institutional priorities — including deepening our engagement with Los Angeles, evolving our research enterprise and elevating how we teach. One theme that cuts across all of these priorities is the need to foster greater interdisciplinary collaboration to improve research and teaching outcomes as well as take advantage of UCLA’s unique breadth of academic excellence.

Aligning with this goal of supporting interdisciplinary collaboration, we would like to share a strategic organizational change that will be initiated this year: The Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior — an interdisciplinary research and education institute that has been part of our health sciences organization since 1973 and currently sits within the DGSOM — will begin a transition from reporting to our medical school to reporting to UCLA’s Office of Research and Creative Activities. The Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences will remain a DGSOM unit.

While the Semel Institute will continue collaborating closely with the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences as well as the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, this change will enable Semel scholars to more readily engage with others across UCLA and will allow the institute to broaden the scope of its studies on human health and behavior. This transition has been endorsed by campus leadership and is consistent with other campuswide initiatives promoting cross-disciplinary opportunities for UCLA institutes.

We recognize that this move constitutes a major organizational change and that many important issues will need to be resolved in the months ahead. We will keep the community apprised of developments, but for now wish to offer our thanks to all those involved in facilitating this transition and to express our high hopes for the positive outcomes we expect it will bring. 

Sincerely,

Darnell Hunt
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

Roger M. Wakimoto
Vice Chancellor for Research & Creative Activities