Minnesota Population Center Development Core

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DEVELOPMENT CORE: SUMMARY The goal of the Development Core is to mentor, retain, and develop the next generation of MPC leaders and to expand MPC research development services beyond the University of Minnesota. The Core has four aims: (1) Establish the MPC Population Scholars Program, an intensive grant writing mentorship program for a racially and disciplinarily diverse cohort of junior scholars at the University of Minnesota and at institutions nationwide. The MPC Population Scholars Program will scale up MPC’s mentored proposal development services and provide the experience to researchers at other institutions; the goal is more competitive proposals from a more diverse group of scholars. (2) Provide rapid response seed funding for novel research projects on time-sensitive topics. Spark Grants will quickly fund high-risk, high-reward research projects on emerging problems. (3) Administer a short-term graduate research assistant (RA) program to assist new and early stage investigators in launching nascent projects. The short-term RA Program will provide assistance with data collection, analysis, literature synthesis, or other activities. (4) Catalyze the creation of interdisciplinary, cross-university population dynamics research teams with Population Dynamics Barn-raisings (PDBs). These half-day panel discussion and networking events are designed to facilitate the creation of synergistic, organic interdisciplinary research teams in MPC’s PRAs. The Aims of the Development Core, as well as its new and continuing activities and programs, are directly relevant to the Overall application’s Aims to (1) enhance and expand MPC’s vibrant intellectual environment; (2) provide end-to-end support for population dynamics research projects; and (3) invest heavily in the next generation of population dynamics researchers. The Development Core prioritizes new and early stage investigators for all services and will extend the reach of all current and proposed programming via accessible livestreams and recordings as well as greater sharing of resources online. These activities—along with more traditional Development Core activities like weekly MPC Seminars and seed grants—will lead to innovative new population dynamics research collaborations and projects at MPC and across the nation.