MARYLAND POPULATION RESEARCH CENTER

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application requests support for continuation of the Population Research Infrastructure Award to the Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC) at the University of Maryland (UMD). MPRC was founded in 1988 in Sociology, became an interdisciplinary center in 2000 and received its first R24 Infrastructure Award in 2002. The award enabled an expansion in the size of the center, the number of externally funded projects, and fostered interdisciplinary exchange. The activities supported by the first R24 Award had major impact on the research environment for MPRC associates, especially for young faculty. The R03 mechanism for NIH funding was targeted and led to a substantial increase in the number of researchers funded. The UMD Provost, citing MPRC's success at developing young faculty and promoting interdisciplinary groups, declared "we strongly recommend that this program potentially serve as a model for other Campus efforts." MPRC now has 55 scientists engaged in innovative research, and is the intellectual home for faculty in anthropology, criminology, economics, geography, human development, public health, public policy, sociology, and survey methods. The research program of Center affiliates advances public health by addressing questions about time use and childhood development and health; social and economic inequality and its impact on heath and health disparities; and about family change and subgroup variation and its relation to healthy families. Center associates also advance public health by contributing new data and methods for population research. The new award will help support MPRC's Administrative, Computing, Information, and Developmental Infrastructure Cores. The Cores' mission is to meet the needs of population scientists and to foster an interdisciplinary environment. MPRC's new Information Core will expand the deployment of web-based tools to enhance Center activities and to provide scholars effective means of managing research collaborations. The award will fund new activities aimed at groups of collaborators studying time use, crime and population, qualitative methods and spatial analysis. These interdisciplinary groups are a key element in attracting scientists from allied fields to the population sciences and in increasing interdisciplinary exchange.