Program Plan
NOTE THAT PROGRAM PLAN INSTRUCTIONS AND COMPONENTS MAY VARY BY INSTITUTE; CHECK FOA
A. Background- Provide rationale for the proposed research training program.
- Relevant background history.
- Need for proposed research training.
- Indicate, how proposed program relates to current training activities at UCSD.
- Summarize research training activities of the major participating depts.
Table 1: Participating Depts./Programs
- Describe the organization of the proposed training program, including participating departments, programs, and the involvement of faculty and trainees in the grant-supported activities.
Table 2: Participating Faculty
- Describe the distribution of faculty academic rank, dept., areas of research emphasis.
- Describe the rationale for the faculty selected to participate in the training grant.
- Analyze data in terms of overall experience of faculty training pre and postdoc trainees.
- Comment on the inclusion of faculty whose mentoring records may suggest limited, recent training experience at either training level.
Table 3: Institutional T32 Grants
- Summarize the level of research training support at the institution.
- Comment on instances where the tabular data indicate that there may be substantial overlap of participating faculty.
B. Program Plan
a. Program Administration
Program Director Information- Describe the PD/PI qualifications for providing leadership of the program, including relevant scientific background, current research areas, and experience in research training.
- Indicate the PD/PI percent effort in the proposed program.
- Describe the administrative structure of the program and the distribution of responsibilities within it, including the means by which the program director will obtain continuing advice with respect to the operation of the program.
- The scientific expertise, including a record of rigorous funded research, as well as the administrative and training experience to provide strong leadership, direction, management, and administration of the proposed research training program.
- The planned strategy and administrative structure to oversee and monitor the program and ensure appropriate and timely trainee progress.
- For multiple PD/PIs: If proposed, explain in this section your rationale for how this will facilitate program administration. (Complete the Multiple PD/PI Leadership Plan)
Refer to data in Table 2: Participating Faculty
- Describe each faculty member's research that is relevant to the program and indicate how trainees will participate in the research.
- Provide information on the extent to which participating faculty members have cooperated, interacted, and collaborated in the past, including joint publications and joint sponsorship of student research.
- Use this section to document the ability of the faculty support the research activities of the proposed trainees, the training record of the participating faculty members, and the success of their trainees in generating publishable research results.
- For any proposed participating faculty members lacking research training experience, describe a plan to ensure that they will successfully guide trainees.
- Describe the criteria used to appoint and remove faculty as program faculty and to evaluate their participation.
- How program faculty will be trained to use mentoring practices that support trainees from all backgrounds.
- How the program has a diverse team of program faculty, including faculty at a range of career stages and from a variety of scientific backgrounds.
- How the program faculty provide supportive mentoring.
- Describe how the faculty effectively coordinate training and mentorship responsibilities.
- Analyze the data in terms of total and average grant support.
- Comment on the inclusion of faculty without research grant support and explain how the research of trainees who may work with these faculty members would be supported.
- Summarize the average number of publications, and how many students have published their work.
- For pre- and postdoc training programs, indicate how many trainees are published as first author, and how many completed their doctoral or postdoc training without any first-author publication.
c. Proposed Training
- Describe the proposed training program.
- Indicate the training levels, number of trainees, required academic and research background, and plans to accommodate varying preparation levels.
- For postdocs, indicate the proposed distribution by degree (e.g., M.D., Ph.D.)
- Describe coursework, research opportunities, trainee involvement in research, skill development activities, and the training duration.
- Describe how the program and faculty provide training in:
- Scientific reasoning, rigorous research design, relevant methods, quantitative approaches, and data analysis suited to the trainees' level and preparation.
- For multidisciplinary or multi-departmental programs, explain how the components are integrated and coordinated, and how they relate to each trainee's experience.
- For training programs that emphasize research training for clinicians, describe the interactions with basic science departments and scientists.
- Include plans for ensuring that the training of these individuals will provide a substantive foundation for a competitive research career.
- Generally, a minimum of 2 years of research training is expected for all postdoc trainees with health professional degrees.
- Describe fully any trainee’s access to and responsibility for patients, including time commitment.
- Training programs that anticipate offering trainees opportunities to be involved in human subjects
research funded by other research grants may include a brief description of those opportunities in
this section, although such a description is not required. - Provide representative examples of programs for individual trainees.
- Include curricula, degree requirements, didactic courses, laboratory experiences, qualifying examinations, and other training activities, such as seminars, journal clubs, etc.
- Outline mentor selection, program guidance, and performance evaluation, including mentoring plans.
- Explain how trainees will be taught relevant data science principles, such as statistics, bioinformatics, data management, security, privacy, research ethics, and responsible conduct.
- Program activities to help trainees choose and prepare for the next step in their biomedical research careers.
- Programs should offer training in oral and written presentations and skills for applying for fellowships or grants.
- All postdocs trainees should also be provided with instruction in laboratory and project management.
- Any didactic training must be well structured and appropriately justified for the duration of the training experience.
- Short-term trainees should engage in supervised biomedical, behavioral, or clinical research to develop and enhance their skills and knowledge for a health-related research career.
- Renewal applications: Highlight how the training program has evolved in response to changes in relevant scientific and technical knowledge or educational practices.
d. Training Program Evaluation
- Describe an evaluation plan to review and determine the quality and effectiveness of the training program.
- This should include plans to obtain feedback from current and former trainees to help identify weaknesses in the training program and to provide suggestions for program improvements.
- Specified evaluation metrics should be tied to the goals of the program.
- Describe plans for assessing the career development and progression of trainees, including publications, degree completion, and post-training positions.
- How the evaluation will assess whether trainees find the program inclusive and supportive of their development.
- The program’s procedures for responding to program evaluation findings.
e. Trainee Candidates
- Provide an overview of the size and qualifications of the trainee candidate pool, including their prior clinical and research training and the required career level for the program.
- Describe specific plans to recruit candidates and explain how these plans will be implemented (see also "Section C. Recruitment Plan to Enhance Diversity" within the Program Plan).
- Describe the nomination, selection, and reappointment criteria for program admission.
- Through the narrative and summaries of the information presented in the Training Data Tables and the attachments, the application should:
- Provide a strong justification for the number of requested trainee positions.
- Expand upon the Recruitment Plan to Enhance Diversity and explain how it will identify and recruit a diverse group of candidates, as described in NIH's Notice of Interest in Diversity.
- Describe how it will identify and recruit candidates from a diverse variety of institution types.
- Describe any plans to engage trainees in their research career development, mentoring and skills development.
- Describe any transition plans to ensure trainees are supported in their various career options and that feedback will be gathered about their experiences in the training program.
- Summarize the data in terms of the overall numbers of potential trainees, their credentials, their characteristics, their eligibility for support, and enrollment trends.
- Include information in the application that documents the support and commitment of the applicant organization and participating units and departments to the goals of the proposed program.
- For example, space, lab facilities, curriculum funds, release time for faculty, trainee support, or other improvements to enhance the research training program.
- Include a signed letter, on institutional letterhead, that describes the applicant organization’s commitment to the planned program (see instructions on Letters of Support).
- Description of the postdoc campus commitment: Postdoc Institutional Environment
- Institutions with external funding for similar programs should explain how the proposed program differs from existing ones, how they might synergize, if trainees will transition between programs, and how the faculty, trainees, and resources will support the new program alongside existing ones.
- Describe the ability of the participating departments/programs to recruit and retain trainees through the completion of their training, the selectivity of the admissions process, and the success of the departments/programs in recruiting individuals from diverse backgrounds (see also Recruitment Plan to Enhance Diversity).
- Discuss the quality of applicant pools, program competitiveness, and characteristics of current participants, referencing data from Table 6B as applicable.
- Use all of this information to justify the number of positions requested.
- Describe the utilization of awarded training positions.
- If any trainee positions were not filled, terminated early, or if the distribution of appointed positions differs from the distribution of awarded positions, provide an explanation.
- Referencing Table 8, describe the use of training positions (distribution by mentor, program year, trainee support duration) and the program's success in meeting its objectives.
- Describe the current research involvement of past trainees, including any grant support received since completing the program.