Recommendation 4
The following changes would improve performance in this crucial domain:
a. Initiate annual progressive increases in funding for institutional training grants, predominantly for graduate students, toward a long-term goal of multiple years of support for a substantial fraction of eligible students. In the 23 IDeA (Institutional Development Award) states (those with historically low levels of NIH funding), indexing the funding of high-quality applications to the number of students in the program rather than the institution’s level of NIH research funding would increase the rate at which training funding will move into those states. Institutions in other (non-IDeA) states would continue to compete for training grants based on training quality and career outcomes. Funding for this expansion of NIH training grant programs would be provided in part by savings from deletion of training funds from research grants. While this transition may need to be gradual, it should be intentional. b. Make non-U.S. citizens eligible for training grant support. Currently, the K99/R00 transition to independence mechanism is the only NIH training mechanism available to non-U.S. citizens lacking permanent residence status. It has been highly successful in attracting and supporting brilliant non-U.S. citizen trainees who have elected to remain and work in the U.S. However, this mechanism is far from adequate given that non-U.S. citizens comprise nearly 50% of the NIH graduate student population. This critical cohort should be included in training grant funding. c. Ensure that trainees understand how their work fits within the arc of science and society interactions, by including in training grant curricula articulation of the public context of science, and skills to communicate to the public and its elected representatives the immediate and potential future impact of their work. d. Add specific mentoring responsibilities and require annual progress report updates for all research grants that provide trainee stipends. Reporting requirements should parallel those expected for training grant recipients, ensuring that all trainees’ progress of all trainees is equal- ly monitored. Success in mentoring and reasonable time-in-training should be included as criteria in evaluating future grant applications that continue to request funds to support trainees. e. Reduce administrative burden on applicants, applicant institutions, and NIH by (i) bundling the current discipline-specific training grants into much broader categories (e.g., basic, clinical, population), thus reducing the multiplicity of training grant applications to be reviewed and administered; and (ii) making the training grant program NIH-wide, using a simplified common application format.
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