The University of South Carolina (USC) was established in 1801 and is a full-service, state-supported research university that includes the 358-acre Columbia campus and seven regional campuses, with a total full-time student body population of more than 45,000. Located in the capital city of Columbia in the geographic center of the state, USC's main campus is part of a thriving metropolitan community of more than 450,000 inhabitants. USC offers a broad spectrum of educational opportunities with 14 colleges and schools that encompass 324 undergraduate and graduate degree-granting programs. USC confers 40% of all bachelors, professional, and graduate degrees awarded in public institutions in South Carolina.

In fiscal year 2017, USC received $254 million in extramural sponsored award funding, 54% percent of which was for research. USC is on the Carnegie Foundation’s list of the highest tier of U.S. research institutions. The University provides researchers with a full range of grant and contract-related services through its Sponsored Awards Management and Grants and Funds Management offices. USC’s Office of Research Compliance oversees the institutional review processes for human and animal subjects as well as disclosure and management of financial conflicts of interest, and it assists with scientific misconduct regulation and export controls.

The SC SmartState Program was established by the state's General Assembly in 2002 with $180 million of non-tax revenue funds generated from the South Carolina Education Lottery. These funds, along with legislatively mandated dollar-for-dollar matching non-state funds, provide support for hiring world-class researchers who serve as the endowed chairs of the SmartState Centers. The Centers are grouped into six industry-focused Smart Clusters to facilitate engagement with businesses, students, potential faculty, and the public. Since its inception, the SmartState Program has brought the knowledge and expertise of 69 world-class scientists to South Carolina. USC is the lead or sole research institution for 18 of the state’s 49 SmartState Centers and is a supporting research collaborator with eight additional Centers located at the Medical University of South Carolina and Clemson University.

Thomas Cooper, the University’s main library, is centrally located on the Columbia campus, and the School of Medicine library is a 15-minute drive from central campus. Both libraries maintain an extensive collection of health-related resources, including books, journals, and indices. Access to online databases and full-text journals is available through the Thomas Cooper Library Web page.

USC’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT), under the direction of the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, oversees centralized and distributed computing and telecommunications services for academic, research, and administrative use to meet the needs of USC faculty, staff, and students. DoIT provides the USC community with computing, voice, and data communications, networking, data security, video transport, information technology training, Web services, customer support, desktop and server support, installation and maintenance of IT infrastructure, policies and procedures assistance, PC labs, software licensing and distribution, IT planning, applications development and support, and operational systems. The Columbia campus is covered by wireless service. USC has a licensing agreement with Microsoft that includes 5TB of secure cloud storage space for every faculty and staff member on OneDrive. Microsoft has signed legal agreements with the University that holds them liable for the security and protection of data stored on OneDrive. OneDrive provides USC researchers with the capability to share data and results with external partners by emailing them a link to securely download the data.

The Arnold School of Public Health (ASPH) was established in 1975 and has an enrollment of more than 2,500 students majoring in public health, including 730 graduate students and 1800 undergraduates, in 30 bachelors, masters, and doctoral programs that prepare graduates for work primarily in health agencies, academic institutions, community organizations, and hospitals. The School currently employs 140 tenure, research, and clinical track faculty members. Based at USC's main campus in Columbia, ASPH is one of 63 U.S. schools of public health fully accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) and is accredited through 2024. In partnership with the Greenville Health System and the USC School of Medicine Greenville campus, ASPH has opened a satellite campus in Greenville, SC, offering established graduate degree programs and is developing a long-term plan for future expansion to include interdisciplinary graduate degree options that combine public health with clinical medicine, nursing, pharmacy and other health disciplines. ASPH’s major goal is the improvement of public health status by preventing health hazards and by promoting improved health services through its research, education, and service programs. The School’s mission is to expand, disseminate, and apply the body of knowledge regarding prevention of disease, disability, and environmental degradation, and to promote health and well-being in diverse populations as well as the provision of effective, efficient, and equitable health services.

The Arnold School offers programs of study at the doctoral, masters, and bachelors levels. Doctoral degrees include Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in seven disciplines and Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT). Masters degrees include Master of Public Health (MPH) in six disciplines, MS or Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) in five disciplines, Master of Health Administration (MHA), Master of Speech Pathology (MSP), and Master of Communication Disorders (MCD). Several of these programs are also offered as part of dual degree programs. The Master of Social Work/Master of Public Health dual degree (MSW/MPH) is offered in cooperation with the College of Social Work with an MPH major of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior or Health Services Policy and Management; the MPH in General Public Health is part of the Doctor of Medicine/Master of Public Health (MD/MPH) and Doctor of Pharmacy/Master of Public Health (PharmD/MPH) dual degree programs. Four baccalaureate programs include the BS in Exercise Science and BS in Athletic Training and both BA and BS programs in Public Health. In addition, the School offers two certificates of graduate study, one in public health and one in health communications, administered in collaboration with the School of Journalism and Mass Communications and the School of Library and Information Science. While the School is fully accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health, the DPT, MHA, MSP and MCD programs are accredited by their respective professional groups.

ASPH maintains numerous computer systems spanning seven sites and includes 32 virtual servers, two student computer labs with 46 workstations, and more than 800 individual faculty, staff, and research computer systems. Five full-time information resource consultants manage and maintain the School's computing resources. ASPH on the Columbia campus is covered by wireless service.

The ASPH datacenter is key-access only by the IT staff members and Dean of the School.  The server infrastructure is run on 3 Dell PowerEdge R710 servers with dual 6-core processors and 1 Dell PowerEdge R720 with dual 8-core processors.  The cluster totals 137 GHz of processing power and 256GB of total memory.  The hosts run VMware vSphere 5 Enterprise software.  The 32 virtual servers are stored on a 6TB Dell MD3200 SAN (Storage Area Network) running a RAID6 array for redundancy and a 30TB expansion SAN also running a RAID6 array.  The datacenter also houses four additional physical servers.  All servers have APC battery backup power supplies and gigabit Ethernet connections.  Full backups are run to an off-site NAS (Network Attached Storage) located in a secure, locked facility each weekend, and incremental backups are captured Monday-Friday evenings.  Shares are created via a Distributed File System in Windows Server and are access controlled via Groups containing unique IDs for users that require complex passwords. 

 See the USC Office of Information Technology (DoIT) section above for additional information about USC-level computing security and capacity.

ASPH is the home of six academic departments: Communication Sciences and Disorders; Environmental Health Sciences; Epidemiology and Biostatistics; Exercise Science; Health Promotion Education and Behavior; and Health Services Policy and Management. In addition to its six departments, ASPH houses interdisciplinary research centers, including the CDC-funded Prevention Research Center, the CDC-funded Disability Research and Dissemination Center; the NIH-funded Cancer Prevention and Control Program; and the HRSA-funded SC Rural Health Research Center. ASPH is also home to five SmartState Centers of Excellence that focus on innovative research in environmental nanotechnology, healthy ageing, healthful lifestyles through technology, improved orthopedic outcomes, and enhanced healthcare quality through translational clinical research.

The Arnold School is home to five SmartState endowed chairs who lead Centers of Excellence within the School that focus on environmental nanotechnology (Environmental Nanoscience and Risk), stroke and intellectual aging (SeniorSMART™), healthy lifestyles supported by technology (TecHealth), improved orthopedic outcomes (Reconstructive and Rehabilitative Sciences), and translational clinical research (Healthcare Quality). The Centers involve post doctoral scholars and both graduate and undergraduate students in their innovative, cutting-edge research activities.

Each faculty member has a private office with a printer and personal computer with Microsoft Office and additional software relevant to his or her teaching and research, Internet access, telephone, and general office support. Faculty members are furnished with additional office and laboratory space as needed for project support.

ASPH Office of Research staff members assist faculty and departmental staff with proposal development and post-award related activities that promote and support efforts to increase grant and contract funding to the School. The Office serves as liaison to USC's Sponsored Awards Management office, which reviews and signs off on all grant and contract proposals prior to submission. In fiscal year 2017, ASPH principal investigators submitted more than $65 million in proposals and were awarded $30 million in extramural funding, including $27 million in research awards from both federal and non-federal sources and more than $12 million from the National Institutes of Health. In addition, ASPH faculty members published more than 550 articles in peer-reviewed journals in 2017.

In close proximity to the Arnold School are other schools and colleges of health-related professions that form USC’s Health Sciences Division, including the School of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Pharmacy, and the College of Social Work.  Faculty from these academic units are actively involved in interdisciplinary research, training, and service activities with Arnold School faculty members.

The University of South Carolina received $152 million in federal grant and contract awards, or 60% of its sponsored award funding from all extramural sources in fiscal year 2017. USC’s Arnold School of Public Health received $24 million in federal awards, 80% of its total sponsored award funding. More than half of federal grant and contract funding to the Arnold School comes from NIH, followed by funding from other federal agencies, including CDC, HRSA, DOD, EPA, USDA, NOAA, USDE, DOE, NSF, and AHRQ.

The Biostatistics Collaborative Research Core (BCRC), based in the Arnold School, provides collaboration assistance, consultation, and support on biostatistics methods, data management, and data coordination for health sciences research at USC, partner institutions, and research clients, while fostering original methodological research.

Health Sciences South Carolina (HSSC), the nation’s first statewide biomedical research collaborative, was founded in 2004 to combine the strengths of the state’s largest hospital systems and leading research institutions to improve the health and economic well-being of South Carolinians. HSSC partners, which include the Greenville Health System, Palmetto Health, Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, Clemson University, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina, each contribute financially to research projects that support their respective missions. These investments in research are intended to attract and recruit nationally renowned researchers, accelerate economic development, compete more effectively for national grant support, and attract additional federal, state and private funds.

The Discovery I building, located in the heart of USC’s 500-acre Innovista research district, is a 115,846 square foot LEED certified structure that is home to research labs, academic offices, and centers and institutes. Fully open for occupancy in January 2014, Discovery I houses the Arnold School of Public Health (ASPH) departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Health Services Policy and Management, and Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior as well as offices and research space for the departments of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Environmental Health Sciences, and Psychology. Also located in the building are the ASPH Office of Research; the Office of Information Technology, which staffs a 34-station computer lab; the Office of Development and Alumni Relations; the Web Development and Communications office; the Cancer Prevention and Control Program; Columbia’s Cooking! an experiential learning kitchen; the Office for the Study of Aging; the Disability Research and Dissemination Center which includes the Coordinating Center for Research to Promote the Health of Children with Birth Defects and People with Developmental and Other Disabilities; the Center for the Study of Aphasia Recovery (CSTAR); the SmartBrain division of the SeniorSMART Center; the SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality; the SmartState Center for Effectiveness Research in Orthopaedics (CERortho); and the SmartState Technology Center for Promoting Healthful Lifestyles (TecHealth).

The Public Health Research Center (PHRC), the second main ASPH building, is located within a block of Discovery I and is a 104,580 square foot LEED-certified  building.  Constructed in 2006, the PHRC houses offices and laboratories of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the Department of Exercise Science, the Center for Environmental NanoScience and Risk, and the Prevention Research Center. The Arnold School Dean’s administrative offices, including Academic Affairs and Graduate and Undergraduate Student Services, also are located in the PHRC.