In response to the alarming increase in the complexity and frequency of global crises, Columbia Global established a Global Resilience Fund in 2023 to serve as a platform for the Columbia University community to respond to major global crises in a coordinated and synergistic way. Since June 2025, the Fund has benefited from the support of Turkish Philanthropy Funds, and the 2026 tranche will be called Columbia Global – Turkish Philanthropy Funds Resilience Initiative Awards.
The Fund is designed to harness the University’s intellectual resources and practical expertise — in partnership with local, in-country institutions — to support recovery and resiliency efforts, and to enable research and scholarship that lead to increased understanding of the root causes of crises and the development of novel, feasible, and scalable solutions.
“In today’s world of increasingly complex crises, Columbia’s responsibility extends beyond crisis response,” said Wafaa El-Sadr, executive vice president of Columbia Global. “We are committed to helping build a more resilient future by equipping communities at risk with the knowledge and tools they need to enable their recovery and plan for a resilient future. The establishment of the Fund, and its inaugural focus on Türkiye, exemplifies this commitment.”
Fund Recipients
Columbia Global has named two cohort of projects funded to advance recovery and resilience work in the regions of Türkiye affected by devastating earthquakes in February 2023. The most recent recipients' work focuses on adolescent mental health and how policymakers can use AI to assist with cultural heritage preservation in post-earthquake environments. This follows up on the 2024 recipients' research on therapy modalities for disaster survivors, the health needs of Syrian refugees in Türkiye, and urban risk management approaches.
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