Vanderbilt-Emory-Cornell-Duke Global Health Fellowship Consortium-Expanding Diversity for Global Equity (EDGE)

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PROJECT SUMMARY – PARENT APPLICATION The Vanderbilt-Emory-Cornell-Duke Consortium for Global Health Fellows (VECDor) comprises institutions with decades-long global partnerships with premier LMIC research institutions in Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia), Asia (India and Vietnam), Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua), and the Caribbean (Haiti). VECDor's collective research portfolio encompasses diverse and complementary foci in both communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with particular strengths in NCDs and HIV/TB. VECDor institutions and faculty bring substantial investigative accomplishment and mentoring excellence, evidenced by successfully supporting 87 highly productive VECDor Fellows and Scholars in 2012-2017, many of whom now have R or K or similar career development grants of their own. Our efficient support center has been honed over 10 years of Fogarty Scholars and Fellows research training administration, and maximizes the flow of funds for research training. In 2017-2022, we will continue to leverage multiple sources of financial and in-kind co-funding and link with multiple institutional and NIH-funded training programs and with minority institution partner Meharry Medical College to select and deploy 80 to 100 US and LMIC trainees with outstanding promise for global health research careers. We are innovating by enhancing diversity in the consortium's leadership, adding and expanding strategic training sites in Central America, Vietnam, and West Africa, and increasing NCD research opportunities. We will enhance our mentorship plan by adding tailored short-term training workshops at VECD institutions before field deployment; enlisting accomplished VECDor alumni in trainee advising; and providing post-fellowship training in grant writing and career coaching, to optimize the quality of scholarly output and trainee success in obtaining research and career development grants and positions. Research themes will address all topic and geographical areas of interest to trainees and sponsoring NIH Institutes and Centers. We will continue to document impacts with our established monitoring and evaluation tools that successfully track the career trajectories and outputs of all trainees, and will further refine our web-based tools to share knowledge, foster local and global networking, and strengthen and sustain clinical research skills among VECDor trainees and alumni. VECDor is built on mutually respectful and constructive relationships among its partners, our collective record of research innovation and mentorship, and successful capacity building with our LMIC partner institutions. Combining our extensive experience in research training program management, robust research funding in diseases of global significance, renowned international research training partners and sites, and sustained institutional leveraging, VECDor will continue to nurture global health research leaders of the 21st century.