Program for Advancing Early-Career Researcher Excellence through Leadership and Management Practices

Significance: Traditional scientific training prepares investigators to conduct scientific research but does not adequately prepare early-career investigators to lead and manage their own labs. This project addresses a gap in the training of the biomedical research workforce by providing early-career investigators with the leadership and management skills needed to foster research rigor, reproducibility, and transparency, responsible conduct of research, and supportive, inclusive research environments.

We will develop a nationally accessible training and mentoring program for early-career faculty researchers launching their independent labs. The program will also provide practical tools, and scholars will develop a personalized lab manual.

Approach: We will apply findings from leadership and management research, utilize novel training and mentoring methods, and engage members of the research community to obtain feedback and encourage their support of the program. We aim to advance diversity by recruiting and fostering the careers of members of historically underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences and by increasing inclusive leadership and mentoring practices among program scholars.

During the grant period, we will: 1) build an innovative, collaborative digital learning environment to deliver a scientific leadership and management curriculum and scalable mentoring, 2) pilot test and refine the program 3) recruit and provide the program to 100 early-career researchers per year, 4) implement program outreach, dissemination, and sustainability plans, and 5) evaluate all research education program components and track the career development of program scholars.