An Adaptation and Evaluation of an Entrepreneurial Research Training Model in Hawaii: The HUI SRC

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Program Summary Only 10% of the faculty research positions in the U.S. are occupied by African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) collectively; however, they constitute over 30% of the U.S. population. With a leaking higher education pipeline, and despite decades of efforts, lack of diversity in the scientific workforce continues to be alarming among underrepresented minorities, particularly Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI). In 2014, the NIH-supported Morgan State University (MSU) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative developed and tested novel programs to encourage and support undergraduate students to successfully pursue biomedical research careers. Based on a central “research entrepreneurship” hypothesis, the program engaged undergraduate students in self- directed entrepreneurial-style research training experiences fostering their sense of autonomy and increasing their level of interactions with their peers and mentors, thus resulting in a strong sense of science identity, readiness to lead research, and matriculation in research-oriented graduate programs. One of the most novel student-level components of the program is the Student Research Center (SRC), a student-led organization, designed to be a hub for attracting, training, and engaging undergraduate students—especially those underrepresented in the health sciences—into biomedical research. Hawai‘i Pacific University (HPU) proposes the HPU Undergraduate Infrastructure Student Research Center (HUI SRC) to attract, train, and mentor underrepresented minority students, particularly Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, in biomedical research. The overarching goal of this study is to examine the effects of student-centered entrepreneurial research programs on underrepresented minority students’ attraction, persistence and career success in biomedical research. The HUI SRC (as adapted from the MSU BUILD program) will be a student-led organization, designed to be a hub for nurturing students’ creativity coupled with peer-support and tiered mentoring in pursuing and succeeding in biomedical research, and enhancing their abilities for graduate education and the scientific workforce. The overarching goal of this study is to examine the effects of student-centered entrepreneurial research programs on underrepresented minority students’ attraction, persistence and career success in biomedical research.