Pilot Project Program

摘要/摘要（试点项目）

Summary/Abstract (Pilot Project Program) The Pilot Project Program (PPP) contributes to the mission of the M-LEEaD Center by supporting pilot projects that encourage innovation, creativity, and multidisciplinary collaborations, especially among basic scientists, clinical researchers, and community and regulatory stakeholders. The Pilot Project Program is an important mechanism for attracting new individuals to our center and for providing support to generate preliminary data to compete for external funding. The aims of the Pilot Project Program are to: 1) attract established investigators new to our center who can provide new insights and approaches to questions regarding the relationships between lifestage environmental exposures and disease; 2) encourage innovation, creativity, and multidisciplinary collaborations, especially between basic scientists, clinical researchers, and community and regulatory stakeholders; 3) facilitate our center members’ ability to respond quickly and effectively to new and quick-turnaround research opportunities, especially those from NIEHS; and 4) provide important support for early-stage investigators to generate preliminary data for developing independent research projects and compete for independent funding. This approach was successful in our initial funding period as evidenced by the number of junior faculty supported, the new collaborations that were formed, the participation of scientists new to environmental health research that participated the center activities as a result of the Pilot Project Program, the number of external grant applications submitted, the number of resulting publications, and career advancement, all as summarized in the progress report. Important advances in the administration of the Pilot Project Program during the last cycle include the formation of a reviewer consortium with other P30 centers to help improve objectivity of the reviews as well as avoid conflicts of interest that can result from reviews by others in the same institution. In the next cycle of the Pilot Project Program will build on the momentum generated in the first four years by continuing the wide distribution of the Request for Applications throughout the School of Public Health and the Medicial School, continuing the Reviewer consortium and continuing the Core facilities. We will also continue our practice of including a COEC member on the review committee responsible for ranking of the proposals to assure their input. Together, these practices will continue the groundbreaking work started in the first cycle of the Pilot Project Program.