The Program on Population Processes at the University of Colorado at Boulder, in response to PAR-04-138 for the R21 Developmental Infrastructure for Population Research, requests 5 years of support to build a Population Center on the foundation of a distinguished 30 year old population program. Our Program includes outstanding senior faculty with national and international reputations, new faculty hires, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students who work on important demographic topics, use cutting-edge methods, publish in the premier demography and disciplinary journals, and obtain federal funding. Importantly, our Program has enjoyed a rich interdisciplinary history, with directors from the departments of anthropology, economics, geography, and currently, for the first time, sociology. We have already accomplished much, but could do far more. With NICHD support, we could (1) expand research in each of our 3 signature themes - migration and population distribution, health, and environment, (2) nourish collaborative and interdisciplinary demographic research, (3) facilitate interaction, among researchers across the U.S. and throughout the world, bridging departments, programs, institutes, and universities, (4) develop junior investigators, (5) raise research quantity and quality through technical support and developmental funds, and (6) increase external funding. To accomplish these goals, we request support for 4 core services - Administration, Information, Statistics and Computing, and Development. The Administrative Core will create new opportunities; produce economies of scale by providing crucial services to all affiliates that would be impossible to provide on an individual basis; and provide secretarial, library, and administrative support for research projects and grants. The Statistics and Computing Core will promote an excellent computing environment for handling large and complex data sets, and in ways that build an unprecedented facility for statistical training and consultation. The Information Core will expand current capabilities significantly, especially in ways that will broaden access to information for affiliates, increase awareness of center activities, and disseminate research findings. The Faculty Development Core will provide crucial seed awards to support new and important demographic research. Together, such support will allow researchers to address larger, more difficult, previously intractable research problems. We are well poised to take full advantage of the resources afforded by a NICHD Center grant and believe that an investment in our program at this time will substantially improve the quality and quantity of our demographic training and research. In fact, we expect that 5 years of NICHD support will position us to compete successfully for an R24 center grant.
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