This is a proposal for a second renewal of travel grant R13AA017107-06. For the last six years, this grant has provided funding to support scientific dissemination and early career investigator (ECI) career development at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association (APA). Psychologists make up a major constituency in the scientific community of alcohol researchers and on topics related to alcohol. The APA is the largest organization of psychologists and their trainees in the US, and its annual convention attracts thousands of attendees. In particular, APA Division 50 (Society for Addiction Psychology) and Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse) are heavily populated with alcohol researchers, many of whom are recipients of NIAAA funding. This R13 grant partners with APA Division 50 and Division 28 to achieve two goals: 1) To disseminate the state-of-the-art alcohol research to the psychological community. 2) To foster the development of the next generation of alcohol researchers from the psychological community. The first goal will be achieved by supporting state-of-the-art alcohol research within the Division 50 and Division 28 conference programs. This will take the form of travel support for speakers in two symposia that showcase advances and innovations in alcohol research. In addition, these symposia and other alcohol research will be communicated to conference attendees via an Alcohol Research Highlights brochure. The second goal will be achieved by providing 20 travel awards to ECIs (i.e., graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty) and hosting an ECI poster session/social hour. In addition, the R13 will support grantwriting and career development workshops each year. For both, the dissemination goal and the career development goal, the R13 will reach out to women and underrepresented minorities to maximize inclusion. To date, this R13 grant has been highly successful in disseminating advances in alcohol research and nurturing the careers of early career alcohol researchers. The goal for the next segment is to sustain these contributions to the field and to expand the travel award program to support a larger number of ECIs.
This project contributes to public health by disseminating advances in alcohol research and supporting early career alcohol researchers in the context of the American Psychological Association's annual convention. The activities in this application will promote greater awareness of new findings within the scientific community and to the broader community of psychologists. In addition, the project will support the pipeline of new researchers developing careers in alcohol research.
