Overview
Wildfires, earthquakes, pandemic flus and cyber-attacks - our mission can be disrupted by events of many shapes & sizes. Our UC Ready Program has a clear goal:
- To prepare the entire University of California to continue our teaching, research, public service and patient care through any disruptive event. If forced to pause, we must be able to rapidly restart.
UC Ready prepares for all sizes of disruptive events: all-encompassing (earthquake, pandemic illness), localized (fire in a building, basement flood), or personal (failure of a hard drive).
We achieve event-readiness by engaging all department-level units in the UC institutions in mission continuity planning. Drawing on the well-accepted methodology of business continuity planning, we focus that methodology on our core mission: teaching, research, public service, and patient care.
The Tool
Needing a tool to enable this joint readiness effort across the UC System, we built one: the UC Ready on-line tool. Currently in its third edition, UC Ready remains the only continuity planning tool designed specifically for the higher education.
To access the UC Ready tool, UC staff should consult their local campus continuity planner. Persons outside the UC community can access a demonstration version of the UC Ready tool.
We freely distribute the pioneering UC Ready planning tool, and it is currently in use at numerous other universities. UC has recently donated the tool to the Kuali Foundation, who will offer a hosted version for worldwide use beginning in Spring 2010.
The Method
The UC Ready methodology is straightforward:
- Create departmental plans. Each operational-level department uses the on-line tool to create a Departmental Continuity Plan. The final section of each plan is a set of Action Items, identified by departmental staff, that will make the department more able to keep functioning in the face of disruptive events.
- Track action items. Action items are tracked for completion.
- Refresh each plan annually.
- Create a campus plan. Experience shows that some of the action items identified by departments are broad in scope. These are grouped into a campus-level continuity plan.
UC Participants
UCOP/Office of Risk Services offers matching funds to support the UC Ready effort at each UC institution. The following institutions are active participants:
- Campuses:
- Medical Centers:
- Davis
- Los Angeles
- Other:
- Division of Agriculture & Natural Resources
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- UC Office of the President
Contacts
For additional information contact:
Chief Risk Officer
UC Office of the President
Phone: (510) 987-9820
Risk Manager, Workers' Compensation
Phone: (510) 987-9868
UC Ready Systemwide Coordinator
Phone: (510) 643-0466