This proposal seeks funding to support the Young Investigator Initiative (YII). The YII is one of the flagship programs of the United States Bone and Joint Initiative and was established to train the next generation of musculoskeletal investigators in the art of preparing high quality grant proposals. The program/conference occurs over two weekends separated by 12-18 months. In the first phase of the YII, early stage clinical and basic science investigators learn the principles of proposing hypothesis-driven research and preparing significant and innovative grant proposals. They are assigned 2-4 experienced mentors who work with them in developing a research question. The young investigators then write and submit a grant proposal. After receiving a critique of their proposal from the awarding agency's review group, they return for the second phase of the YII program (usually after 12-18 months). In this phase, the participants learn how to respond to the critique and refine and improve the application. The application is then resubmitted. This iterative process continues until the investigator receives funding. The success of the YII mentoring program has been remarkable. Since its establishment in 2005, over 750 scientists have applied for training. 378 have been accepted. These individuals have received 1,104 grants totaling over $280 million dollars. The success rate for funding is 55%. The YII strongly supports diversity in recruiting young basic and clinical scientists into the program. 51% of the participants are female. We ensure that arrangements for child and family care and handicap access are available at the conference sites. Moreover, recruitment of under-represented minority candidates is also a major feature of YII. In this regard, the YII utilizes the NIH network of CTSA (Clinical Translational Science Award) institutions to identify potential minority candidates and will, if necessary, waive any fees for these individuals. The scientists that comprise the mentoring faculty are all former NIH and CIHR study section members with many years of experience. Their involvement in this program is voluntary. They participate because of their commitment to keep full the pipeline of new musculoskeletal investigators. Most of the budget requested in this proposal will be used to defray the expenses of the faculty and procure the conference venue. In summary, it is important that we provide the best possible training to advance the careers of young investigators working in the musculoskeletal sciences. We believe that the Young Investigator Initiative, at least in part, achieves this goal.
This application requests funds to support the Young Investigator Initiative (YII). The YII is a grant writing/mentoring program aimed at training the next generation of musculoskeletal scientists. The YII has been active for over 12 years and demonstrated remarkable success in guiding early stage investigators in launching an independent research career.
