Funding Opportunity Number: RFA-NS-25-027
Deadlines
Internal Submission: February 10, 2025
Sponsor Final Submission: March 25, 2025
For instructions on how to apply, please see the HSC InfoReady Competition link.
Description
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 goal of this R25 program is to support educational activities that encourage individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences, to pursue further studies or careers in research.
To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this NOFO will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on:
- Research Experiences: Hands-on exposure to neuroscience research within the mission of the relevant NIH Institute (the institute that funds the associated T32), to prepare participants for admission into a strong, research focused, neuroscience-related graduate program, and, ultimately, a career in biomedical research.
- Courses for Skills Development: Courses and/or activities designed to develop an understanding of critical knowledge, and scholarly potential of participants, to facilitate admission to a strong, research-focused doctoral degree program, and ultimately a career in the biomedical research workforce.
Purpose and Background Information
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognizes the need to promote a diverse biomedical, clinical, behavioral and social sciences (collectively termed “biomedical”) research workforce. There are many benefits that flow from a diverse NIH-supported scientific workforce, including fostering scientific innovation, enhancing global competitiveness, contributing to robust learning environments, improving the quality of research, enhancing public trust, and increasing the likelihood that health disparities and the needs of underserved populations are addressed in biomedical research. NIH strives to ensure that future generations of researchers will be drawn from the entire pool of talented individuals, bringing different skills, perspectives, interests, and experiences to address complex scientific problems.
In spite of recent advances, individuals from certain groups and backgrounds are underrepresented in the biomedical sciences research workforce.For more information, see Notice of NIH’s Interest in Diversity. The under representation of these groups becomes more severe at each training stage.. For example, students from certain racial and ethnic groups, including Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos/Latinas, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders comprise ~39 percent of the college age population (Census Bureau data), but earn only ~17 percent of bachelor’s degrees and ~15 percent of Ph.D. degrees in the life sciences (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. Additionally, while the United States has seen a significant increase in the number of Ph.D. degrees in the biomedical sciences earned by scientists from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the biomedical research workforce, a corresponding increase in the ranks of the faculty in basic science departments has not occurred (Gibbs, et al., eLife 2016;Valantine, Lund & Gammie, CBE-Life Sciences Education, 2016. Similarly, women have earned a majority of biomedical Ph.Ds. since 2008 (NSF data, but only approximately a third of NIH-funded principal investigators are women (NIH Databook.
The Approach of the DR Program
This Limited Competition Doctoral Readiness (DR) Program is intended to provide neuroscience research experience, neuroscience education, skills development and education about choosing graduate programs, mentors and careers to research-oriented postbaccalaureate participants from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. Completion of this two-year research education program should enable participants to successfully transition into strong, research-focused, doctoral degree programs (e.g., Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D., or D.D.S./Ph.D.) in biomedical fields. These DR Programs are only intended to support individuals from institutions that do not offer undergraduates access to substantive research opportunities. Funded programs are expected to provide participants with a strong research experience, together with neuroscience education and activities that will build a strong cohort of neuroscience research-oriented individuals.
Integrating this research education experience within an excellent, established T32 research training program is intended to enhance neuroscience research identity, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging among all participants within the neuroscience research community. It will facilitate the entry of participants into an existing cohort within which they can participate in career-building activities with others that have similar goals. This integration will afford opportunities to participate in activities that have been developed locally, and evaluated by the NIH peer review process, as best practices for helping individuals succeed as neuroscience researchers. Additionally, the program will demonstrate first-hand to participants what graduate school trainees are offered in a strong graduate program, and will expose them to models of mentorship and graduate school education. Combined, the experiences in the Neuroscience DR Program will enable participants to make informed choices about the types of research and/or careers in which they may have an interest, the variety of mentorship models that exist within a graduate program, and differences in institutions and programs to which they might apply for graduate education.
Each program should provide high-quality experiences that educate participants on the technical (e.g., appropriate methods, technologies, and quantitative/computational approaches), operational (e.g., independent knowledge acquisition, rigorous experimental design, and interpretation of data) and professional (e.g., management, leadership, communication, and teamwork) skills required for careers in the neuroscience research workforce. Moreover, participants should be integrated into a team of scientists (at a minimum, paired up with a graduate or postdoctoral researcher who values a collaborative effort and seeks strong mentorship experience themself) to pursue all aspects of a research project (e.g., hypothesis generation, experimental design, analytical approaches, data collection, etc.). Funded R25 programs are expected to actively promote fully inclusive research environments (i.e., institutional, departmental, and individual laboratory), where researchers from all backgrounds and career stages are included, fully integrated into, and supported equally by the community.