AGENCY: Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)/National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institutes of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)/National Center for Minority Health Disparities (NCMHD)

PROGRAM: Bridges to the Doctorate Program (R25)

OBJECTIVES: This program provides funding to increase the number of students from groups underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral research enterprise of the nation and/or populations disproportionately affected by health disparities (hereafter referred to as targeted groups/populations) who successfully complete the Ph.D. degree in biomedical and behavioral sciences. This initiative promotes inter-institutional partnerships between institutions granting a terminal master’s degree and institutions that offer Ph.D. degrees to develop well-integrated developmental activities that will increase students’ preparation and skills as they advance academically in the pursuit and successful completion of the Ph.D. degree in biomedical and behavioral sciences. The program expects that in five years: (a) the overall institutional transfer rate of students from targeted groups/populations from the participating master’s degree granting institution(s) to Ph.D. degree programs in biomedical/behavioral sciences will increase by 50%; (b) at least 75% of the Bridges students, upon or before graduation from the master’s degree program, will transfer to Ph.D. degree programs in biomedical/behavioral sciences; and (c) at least 80% of the transferring Bridges students will successfully complete their Ph.D. degrees in biomedical/behavioral sciences.

Bridges to the Doctorate is an institutional program that provides support for student, faculty and institutional development activities. The types of activities proposed to achieve the objectives of the program are left entirely to the choice of the applicant institutions but must be consonant with the goals of the Bridges to the Doctorate Program. Examples of developmental activities may include, but are not limited to:

(1) Faculty from the doctorate institution(s) serving as visiting lecturers, offering lectures and/or laboratory courses in areas in which expertise needs strengthening at the master’s institution(s);
(2) Faculty from the two types of institutions jointly developing courses and curricula, including updating existing or developing new/advanced courses at the master’s institution(s);
(3) Faculty from the doctorate institution providing mentored research experiences to Bridges students from the master’s degree institution(s), including the summer research internships, and serving on their thesis advisory committees;
(4) Allowing master’s students to take some courses, and complete part of their thesis research at the doctoral institution(s);
(5) Providing master’s degree students access to computer and library facilities, seminars, and workshops, etc., at the doctoral institution(s);
(6) Establishing a mentoring and academic counseling program for master’s students with faculty at the doctoral institution(s); and
(7) Advanced or special courses and scientific research conferences for Bridges faculty from the master’s degree institution(s).

The proposed research education program may complement other, ongoing research training and education occurring at the applicant and its partner institutions, but the proposed educational experiences must be distinct from those research training and research education programs currently receiving federal support.

ELIGIBILITY RESTRICTIONS: An applicant institution may not submit, or have pending, more than one Bridges to the Doctorate application. An institution may only hold one Bridges to the Doctorate award.

Each proposed Bridges to the Doctorate program must consist of a partnership/consortium composed of no more than three institutions, including the applicant institution. One must be an institution that offers the master’s degree as the only graduate degree in the biomedical/behavioral sciences within the participating departments. Another institution must be a college or university offering the Ph.D. degree in biomedical/behavioral sciences. The participating institutions in the consortium must assure support for the proposed research education project. Appropriate institutional commitment to the project includes the provision of adequate staff, facilities, and educational resources that can contribute to the planned research education project.

The master’s degree-granting institutions in the Bridges to the Doctorate Program must offer a terminal master’s degree in biomedical or behavioral sciences as their highest degree and have a high enrollment, as determined by the applicant institution, of master’s degree-seeking students from target groups/populations.  The Ph.D. degree-granting institution(s) in the consortium must be research institutions that have a significant number of mentors with NIH or other extramural research support and that award the doctoral degree in biomedical or behavioral science fields.

The Principal Investigator, referred to as the Program Director (PD), should be a full-time faculty member with research, teaching, student counseling and/or academic administrative experience and an interest in promoting biomedical and behavioral science education among students from targeted groups/populations.

Research education programs developed under this initiative must target students from groups underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral research enterprise of the nation and/or populations disproportionately affected by health disparities (targeted groups/populations). Nationally, the targeted groups/populations include, but are not limited to, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans (including Alaska Natives), Natives of the U.S. Pacific Islands, and/or rural Appalachians. Bridges students must be a U.S. citizen or non-citizen national or permanent resident and must be matriculated full-time in master’s degree programs in biomedical or behavioral science fields at the partner master’s degree institution.

DEADLINES:
BU Internal Deadlines: August 1, 2008 and November 7, 2008
Application Deadlines: September 18, 2008 and January 20, 2009

FUNDING INFORMATION: Because the nature and scope of the proposed research education program will vary from application to application, it is anticipated that the size and duration of each award will also vary. The anticipated number of new and renewal Bridges to the Doctorate awards is six to nine per year.

AGENCY CONTACT:
Shiva P. Singh, Ph.D.
Division of Minority Opportunities in Research
National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH
45 Center Drive, Suite 2As.37, MSC 6200
Bethesda, MD 20892-6200
Telephone: (301) 594-3900
FAX: (301) 480-2753
Email: singhs@nigms.nih.gov
Web: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-07-410.html   

INTERNAL REVIEW PROCESS: To screen potential proposals for this competition, an internal deadline has been established. Principal Investigators (PIs) interested in submitting an application should provide the following proposal information to their Associate Dean by Friday, August 1, 2008 for internal review purposes:

1.  Project description (maximum length 5 pages) should include items a – e:

(a) list the participating institutions and provide the rationale for selecting these
    institutions for the consortium;
(b) describe the overall goals and specific measurable objectives that the consortium
    institutions expect to accomplish;
(c) outline the plan that will enable Master’s degree students to transition successfully
    into the doctoral program of the Ph.D.-granting institution;
(d) describe the specific research education activities proposed (e.g., courses,
    curricula, seminars, workshops);
(e) provide a plan for the administration of the program.

2. Budget and budget justification (2 pages).

3. Biographical sketches: include NIH format biographical sketch for the PI and senior/key personnel.

4. Review comments from any previous R25 submission.

Following the Dean’s assessment of the internal application, it will be forwarded to Associate Provost Joan Kirkendall for review and then to the Office of the VP for Research for final selection.  PIs will be informed if their proposal is selected for submission in time to complete and process their proposal for final review.

REMARKS: NIH requires that applications to this program be submitted electronically through Grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov).  After submission via Grants.gov, applications will be retrieved and processed by the NIH Commons system (https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/index.jsp). In order to prepare a responsive application, PIs should download both the complete program guidelines (PAR-07-410) and the corresponding application package from Grants.gov as well as the NIH Grants.gov Application Guide (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/424/index.htm). PIs must also be registered Commons users.  For more information about Grants.gov and the NIH Commons, or to register as a Commons user, please contact either Kathleen Foster (kfoster@bu.edu) or Eleanor Greene (ergreene@bu.edu) in the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) at x3-4365. In addition, please contact the OSP Assistant Director assigned to your school or department as soon as possible to coordinate submission through the Grants.gov system.

Please distribute this notice to any faculty or staff members who might be interested in the information. For more information, please contact the OSP at X3-4365 or ospinfo@bu.edu, or visit the OSP web site at http://www.bu.edu/osp.