A Development Program for Junior Faculty Submitting National Institutes of Health Grant Applications (Case Study‪)‬

Introduction The Department of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine has over 100 active faculty researchers in 20 Sections and Programs. The Department's Pre-Award Research Office is a separate area of departmental administration providing, among other things, information to new faculty and staff on pre-award services, guidance in identifying funding opportunities, budgetary and administrative review, communication on research issues, and educational sessions. Common sense and good grantsmanship would ensure that all grants submitted by junior faculty were reviewed carefully by the section/program chiefs, mentors, and collaborative faculty. However, this was not being consistently done, partially due to vacancies in the section chief positions. Therefore, in an effort to improve the NIH "hit" rate, in July 1998 Dr. Andrew I. Schafer (1), Chair, and Dr. Glenn Cunningham, Vice Chair for Research, introduced a departmental-wide, mandatory program to the section/program chiefs at their monthly executive faculty meeting; the program was initiated later that year. Dubbed the "junior faculty review process," the program involved an internal and external review of new and competing NIH research (R01only) and career (K) proposals submitted by instructors and assistant professors, regardless of their age or prior/current holding of an NIH grant. This process was intended to supplement, not supplant, the section/program review. The junior faculty were still expected to have mentors and section/program chiefs review their proposals.