NIDCD's Mentoring Networks to Enhance Clinician-Scientists' Participation in Research (R25 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in the mission areas of the NIH. The overarching goal of this R25 program is to support educational activities that help recruit individuals with specific specialty or disciplinary backgrounds to research careers in biomedical, behavioral and clinical sciences. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this FOA will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on: Mentoring Activities. The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research educational activities that complement other formal training programs in the mission areas of the NIH Institutes and Centers. The overarching goals of the NIH R25 program are to: (1) complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs; (2) encourage individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences, to pursue further studies or careers in research; (3) help recruit individuals with specific specialty or disciplinary backgrounds to research careers in biomedical, behavioral and clinical sciences; and (4) foster a better understanding of biomedical, behavioral and clinical research and its implications. The overarching goal of this R25 program is to support educational activities that help recruit individuals with specific specialty or disciplinary backgrounds to research careers in biomedical, behavioral and clinical sciences. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this FOA will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on: Mentoring Activities: Within the context of a mentoring network, activities may include, but are not limited to, dedicated efforts at providing not only technical expertise, but advice, insight, and professional career skills to master's level and graduate students (including predoctoral health professional students, such as those seeking the Au.D. and M.D. degrees), postdoctorates and/or early-to-mid career faculty; facilitating scholarly writing and grantsmanship; promoting successful transitions from one career stage to another; providing leadership development; helping to identify potential collaborators; and helping to establish interdisciplinary collaborations in order to foster a career trajectory towards independent research. Additionally, the NIH realizes that quality mentorship is critical to the recruitment and retention of scientists in biomedical research. Therefore, this FOA welcomes programs aimed at improving the caliber of mentorship. For example, workshops to educate mentors on establishing and sustaining effective research mentoring relationships (e.g. summer course or a workshop accompanying a NIDCD's mission-related scientific meeting in which case-based scenarios may be used to educate mentors on various relevant ethical, professional and cultural issues facing students today for example, effective communication and mentoring compacts, or addressing cultural awareness, among others). Also, the program intends to support innovative mentoring network programs within scientific and/or professional societies and organizations in NIDCD's research areas. Mentors from all demographic backgrounds should be encouraged to participate in the proposed program. There is a critical workforce need for clinician investigators, i.e. those with clinical experience who conduct research and offer skills and perspectives directly related to human health, disease conditions, clinical decision-making, diagnoses, prevention, and improving health outcomes. Relatively few physicians and other health professionals are pursuing research careers, and existing opportunities may not maintain adequate numbers or diversity of physician scientists (Advisory Committee to the Director, Physician Scientist Workforce Report, 2014 Request for Information (RFI): Strategies to Enhance Diversity in the Physician-Scientist Workforce Notice Number: NOT-OD-16-027.). In addition, the overall size of the current clinician investigator workforce constitutes only a small proportion of all NIH-funded research investigators, and this is particularly true for early-stage clinician investigators. Thus, new approaches are needed to recruit, prepare and retain more clinician-investigators from the large pool of potential researchers with health professional doctorates. Many clinical graduates subsequently hold positions in academic institutions, report research activity, and contribute substantial professional effort in research as clinician investigators. Among today’s NIH-funded clinician-scientists, about 60% hold a single health professional degree and 40% hold both health professional and research doctorate degrees. The data also indicate that women and individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups still represent a particularly low proportion of this workforce. Thus, efforts to recruit and retain even a slightly greater proportion of clinicians in research careers could significantly enhance and diversify the clinician investigator workforce. In order to achieve this goal more opportunities are needed to increase clinician's participation in research aiming to facilitate their transition to become established clinical investigators. This NIDCD Mentoring Networks to Enhance Clinician-Scientists Participation in Research R25 Program is a flexible and specialized initiative designed to foster the development of NIDCD's clinician-scientist workforce including clinicians across career stages, varied clinical backgrounds, as well as individuals from diverse backgrounds, including from underrepresented in the biomedical sciences such as those included in the Notice of NIH's Interest in Diversity (NOT-OD-20-031). Thus, NIDCD encourages applications from organizations that propose innovative mentoring and professional development activities in all NIDCD's research areas (hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech, and language). This program will focus on factors that have been shown to affect recruitment and retention of clinicians in research such as mentoring and technical expertise, scientific networks, professional development, pathways in research careers, and strategies to become independent clinical research investigators. Programs that target transitions and/or more than one career stage for research career advancement and progression are strongly encouraged. This initiative will support the development of collaborative research education partnerships that will increase participants’ awareness and interest in NIDCD's research areas, develop participants’ scientific knowledge and skills that will allow them to progress and transition to more advanced research education and training activities. Although this R25 program is not a typical research instrument, applicants should develop education programs and activities that can be amenable to formal program evaluation to determine their effectiveness. A specific plan must be provided for program evaluation (see Section IV, Evaluation Plan). For some types of projects, a plan for disseminating results appropriate and required as well (see Section IV, Dissemination Plan). NIDCD recognizes the heterogeneity of institutional/organizational settings and missions; therefore, the scope, purpose, and objectives of initiatives proposed in response to this FOA are anticipated to be very diverse. NIDCD encourages applications from scientific professional societies in NIDCD's mission research areas, as well as applications that create partnerships (e.g., between professional societies and academic institutions; between research-intensive institutions and less research-intensive institutions; and/or institutions that will increase the diversity of the biomedical workforce as defined by the Notice of NIH's Interest in Diversity; and/or academic or non-profit partnerships where health professionals might engage in research). Applications that focus on more than one specific career stage and/or transitions between multiple career stages are strongly encouraged. Research education programs may complement ongoing research training and education occurring at the applicant institution, but the proposed educational experiences must be distinct from those training and education programs currently receiving Federal support. R25 programs may augment institutional research training programs (e.g., T32, T90) but cannot be used to replace or circumvent Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) programs,