The UNITE E Committee recently updated the research community on their progress towards creating a “multipronged strategy to advance racial equity and create the most inclusive biomedical research environment possible.” We wanted to briefly share a few of their efforts here.
Thinking about a career in research or wondering how to move forward in your journey to becoming an independent researcher? Browse NIH programs by career path to learn more about eligibility, current funding opportunities, and more.
0 Comments
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Ericka Boone as the new director of the Division of Biomedical Research Workforce (DBRW) in the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER), and I am thrilled she agreed to take on this role, given her background, interest, passions, and work ethic. Read on to learn more about Ericka.
2 Comments
From struggles to successes, 2020 deserves a look back. Right before the holidays, I sat down with Dr. David Kosub from the NIH Office of Extramural Research’s communication shop to reflect on 2020 and what may be in store for the year ahead. I invite you to watch our conversation and hope you have a happy, healthy, and safe new year!
1 Comments
NIH has considered a different approach to defining scientists from disadvantaged backgrounds. We reviewed a wide variety of criteria, looking for those that are relatively easy to self-evaluate and that capture a large proportion of affected people.
32 Comments
At NIH, we are heavily invested in our workforce and in understanding the barriers they face. What characteristics do they share? How do they compete in the current hypercompetitive environment? When do they stop applying to NIH (drop out), even after receiving their first award? Staff from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) delve into these questions in a paper published recently in PLOS ONE , whose findings I’d like to highlight today. Here, Drs. Patricia Haggerty and Matthew Fenton looked at factors that may contribute to the success of early-career investigators and if these factors affect all junior researchers equally.
2 Comments
By the time many researchers have completed their education and training, they have amassed on average $160,000 in student loan debt. The NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) are a set of programs established by Congress and designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or biobehavioral research careers. The LRPs counteract early-career researchers’ financial pressure by repaying up to $35,000 annually ($70,000 over a two-year contract) of a researcher’s qualifying educational debt in return for a commitment to engage in research areas important to the mission of NIH.
0 Comments
For nearly 10 years, more women than men received PhDs in the biomedical sciences, yet women are still underrepresented at every subsequent stage of academic advancement. In 2015, for example, women earned 53% of PhDs, but they comprised only 48% of post-doctoral fellows, 44% of assistant professors, and 35% of professors. To better understand what might be contributing to women’s underrepresentation in later stages of academia, Dr. Lisa Hechtman and her colleagues at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) analyzed “funding longevity by gender” among funded NIH investigators. Their analysis, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, yielded a number of interesting findings which I’d like to share with you.
9 Comments
As highlighted in many previous blog posts and the recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report, promoting a strong biomedical workforce is a top priority for the NIH. In 2017, NIH launched the Next Generation Researchers Initiative, which is a multi-pronged approach to increase the number of NIH-funded early stage investigators. An important component of this initiative is the call for increased transparency and availability of data about the make-up of the biomedical research workforce. More complete data will allow NIH leadership to best understand and address the needs of our emerging workforce.
5 Comments
We are pleased to announce that stipends will be increased for those supported by Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (NRSAs). As a result, approximately 15,000 NRSA training grant appointees and fellows spanning career stages from undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers will receive a two percent stipend increase for Fiscal Year 2018. Please see the recently released NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-18-175 for the specific new stipend levels.
1 Comments
0 Comments