Support for Faculty to Teach Survival Skills and Ethics

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Success in science requires a variety of professional "survival" skills as well as the background and research experience normally provided by pre- and post-doctoral training programs. Thus, ultimately most researchers must learn to communicate effectively (orally and in writing), teach, supervise and mentor, obtain employment and funding, and behave responsibly. Over the past 20 years the investigators have developed a course that provides graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty with explicit training in these subjects. In addition, for the past 10 years the investigators have offered an annual trainer-of-trainers conference in which faculty obtain the instruction and materials necessary to establish such courses at their own institutions. In this renewal application, funding is requested to extend the Pi's efforts at disseminating their model for providing formal instruction in survival skills and the responsible conduct of research (RCR). There are four specific aims (1) Provide qualified individuals with travel fellowships to attend the trainer-of-trainers conference. Forty fellowships per year will be made available with the goal of increasing the number, quality, and diversity of participants. (2) Offer modest start-up grants to help faculty members establish their instructional programs. Ten competitive grants of up to $2,000 each will be made available to participants in the current year's trainer-of-trainers conference. (3) Develop regional conferences for alumni of the trainer-of-trainers conference and other interested individuals. Two 3-day conferences will be offered per year. The objective of these conferences will be to facilitate information sharing and the development of regional networks. (4) Expand the evaluation of the effectiveness of this project. The impacts of the regional conferences and start-up grants will be assessed. In addition, site visits of 4 of the programs implemented by alumni for trainees will be performed per year. The latter is intended to provide insights into how to design more effective instruction for faculty members from different environments.