The COVID-19 pandemic has created challenging circumstances across the globe. Giving programs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign allow friends of the university to lend a hand to help support students, aid groundbreaking research and foster upcoming innovation.
Learn more about the COVID-19 relief efforts below.
Illinois Cares: Covid-19 Emergency Support Fund
The Illinois CARES: COVID-19 Emergency Support Fund assists with students’ most critical needs, including tuition assistance, housing and food this academic year. This giving opportunity helps ensure that those who need it most have the resources they need to continue their education.
SHIELD Illinois Fund
The SHIELD initiative was pioneered by Illinois researchers to create frequent, inexpensive, and rapid testing, privacy-centered exposure notifications, and test result communications in coordination with the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department to limit the spread of COVID-19. The SHIELD Fund helps keep Illinois students, faculty, staff and community members safe through SHIELD’s comprehensive platform, including saliva testing.
Health Sciences Priority Fund
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a leader in innovation. This fund supports some of the most urgent COVID19 projects and initiatives pertaining to health sciences across the university. This includes:
- Addressing national and global shortages in COVID-19 testing mechanisms, PPE, therapeutics and medical devices.
- Resource generation and process improvement to address the efficacy and accessibility of quality healthcare in a time of crisis, as well as the safety of front-line healthcare personnel.
- Research using big data, AI and other emergent technologies to address prevention, treatment and recovery efforts (including those that address supply chain, mental health, environmental and adjacent crises) for COVID-19 as well as future global health crises.
- Research and programming to alleviate the disparities in healthcare, food and shelter security and income inequality suffered by traditionally under-represented and vulnerable populations and those most directly impacted by disasters such as COVID-19.