At NIGMS, site visits have traditionally been part of the peer review process for some training program renewal applications. The visits, which generally happened every other renewal cycle for existing programs, were conducted by NIGMS staff and review panel members to gain additional information about the programs. For those of you who are program directors or peer reviewers of our undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral training programs, it may feel as if site visits went away a long time ago. This is because changes to most of our training programs required new application submissions (see our previous post), which resulted in a significant reduction in visits, followed by a complete stoppage in recent months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

UPDATE: The video and slides from the PRAT webinar are now available.

We’re hosting a webinar for students and fellows interested in the PRAT Program for the October 2, 2020, receipt date:

Tuesday, July 14, 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET

PRAT is a competitive 3-year fellowship program that prepares trainees for leadership positions in biomedical careers. Training includes a mentored laboratory research experience and intensive career and leadership development activities. PRAT fellows conduct research in laboratories in the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) in basic biomedical research areas within the NIGMS mission. These areas include, but are not limited to, biological chemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, cellular and molecular biology, computational biosciences, developmental biology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience, pharmacology, physiology, and technology development.

We’re pleased to announce that the NIGMS Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Predoctoral Institutional Research Training Grant (T32) for the basic biomedical sciences has been reissued (PAR-20-213). This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) continues our efforts to ensure biomedical graduate research training keeps pace with the rapidly evolving biomedical research enterprise. The goal of the T32 program is to develop a diverse pool of scientists with the technical, operational, and professional skills needed to advance their chosen fields and transition into productive careers in the biomedical research workforce.

UPDATE: Additional webinars have been announced. View the full schedule.

We’re pleased to announce a new webinar series for students, postdocs, and faculty. Each hour-long webinar will include a 10- to 15-minute presentation by the speaker followed by a moderated question and answer session. Our hope is that these webinars will enhance our trainees’ ongoing learning experiences. 

The webinar series kicks off next Monday, May 4, and a tentative list of dates and speakers is below. As plans are finalized, additional details will be posted on our website.

UPDATE: The slides [PDF] from the G-RISE webinar are now available.

Are you preparing a grant application for the Graduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (G-RISE) institutional research training program? Please join us for an informational webinar about the program and application components, and the opportunity to ask us questions:

Tuesday, April 14th, 2020, 12:00-2:00 p.m. ET

The safety of trainees and other lab workers from accidents, violence, harassment, and inappropriate behavior is a high priority for NIGMS. Because the Institute has such a large training and workforce development portfolio, we feel that we should play a central role in promoting the development of a robust culture of safety in biomedical research training environments.

As part of this effort, we recently announced the availability of supplements for research education, training, and career development grants to enhance laboratory safety curricula and to build a culture of safety in biomedical research training environments (NOT-GM-20-016). To provide additional resources to enhance safety, we have now launched an NIGMS website highlighting laboratory safety training and guidelines. On this page, you’ll find links to a number of online resources including:

To assist with virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’d like to remind you of the valuable resources NIGMS supports for our trainee and educator communities. These resources apply to all levels, ranging from community college students to faculty.

To continue our efforts to catalyze the modernization of biomedical research training and career development, we invite eligible institutions with NIGMS training (T32, T34), certain research education (R25), or institutional career development (K12) awards to apply for administrative supplements to develop and implement curricular, training, or administrative activities to:

• Enhance laboratory safety curriculum and a culture of safety in biomedical research training environments (NOT-GM-20-016)
• Promote safe and inclusive biomedical research training environments (NOT-GM-20-018)
• Enhance undergraduate biomedical research training (NOT-GM-20-019) (T34 and R25 undergraduate programs only)
• Enhance program evaluation capacity (NOT-GM-20-020)

UPDATE: Slides from the MARC [PDF] and U-RISE [PDF] presentations have been posted.

Are you preparing an institutional Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) or Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE) grant application? If so, please join us for a webinar about these programs and the opportunity to ask questions:

Tuesday, March 24, 2020, 2:00-4:00 p.m. ET

The Support of Competitive Research (SCORE) program strives to increase the research competitiveness of faculty at institutions with a historical mission or demonstrated track record of training and graduating students from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical research (see NIH’s Notice of Interest in Diversity). Funding opportunity announcements for the three SCORE mechanisms were just reissued: