The major goal of the Investigator Development Core (IDC) is (1) to provide significant research support to minority early career investigators and junior faculty with innovative pilot projects and (2) to offer the recipients a mentoring program that will improve their ability to achieve their long-term success as independent Investigators who obtain extramural funding (mentored K award and R series funding). The IDC will fund Pilot Projects to support Senior Research Associates or junior faculty with grant support ranging from $30,000 to 50,000 per year for two years. Grantees will be able to use core facilities at no cost. The IDC will provide the awardees with resources, mentors, and other strategic components to ensure success in reaching their research career goals the main emphasis of the IDC is to provide (1) research support, and (2) a strong mentoring program for the development of researchers with grant writing skills and the generation of research data. Procedures to distribute the pilot project awards involves an announcement, acceptance of applications, committee review of written proposals by the IDC committee (IDC, CEC, and other Core leaders) and RCMI Executive Committee. Criteria for evaluation of the pilot projects include scientific novelty, technical merit, significance/relevance to health disparities, experience, and qualifications of the applicant, and record of accomplishments. Initial local evaluations of each project will be followed by NIH-style evaluations and scoring of the proposed work by three external evaluators (R01 scientists or equivalent levels) with similar research interest to the proposed project. Awardees will present their works-in-progress quarterly with oral presentations to the committee and mentors of each awardee to obtain inputs of the scientific ideas and directions of the projects. The progress of the pilot projects will be reviewed and evaluated quarterly by the IDC committee. The pilot project awardees will closely interact with the Research Infrastructure Core and Community Engagement Core and will attend monthly seminars/workshops with renowned external speakers. If an investigator does not make by the end of the 1st year, funding for the 2nd year will not be awarded. The committee will closely work with each awardee and mentor to prepare competitive NIH grant applications. It is expected that the awardee will publish a minimum of two research articles in high impact journals in the field at the end of the two years of funding. By the end of the 2nd year of the award, awardees are required to submit research grants to federal agencies such as mentored K award and R series proposals using the preliminary data obtained from pilot project awards. Implementation of the IC is expected to result in successful minority scientists well- trained in health disparities who possess the knowledge and credentials to obtain mainstream external funding.
