Dataset Information

The increasing importance of fellowships and career development awards in the careers of early-stage biomedical academic researchers.

ABSTRACT: Excessive competition for biomedical faculty positions has ratcheted up the need to accumulate some mix of high-quality publications and prestigious grants to move from a training position to university faculty. How universities value each of these attributes when considering faculty candidates is critical for understanding what is needed to succeed as academic faculty. In this study, I analyzed publicly available NIH grant information to determine the grants first-time R01 (FTR01) awardees held during their training period. Increases in the percentage of the FTR01 population that held a training award demonstrate these awards are becoming a more common component of a faculty candidate's resume. The increase was largely due to an expansion of NIH K-series career development awards between 2000 and 2017. FTR01 awardees with a K01, K08, K23, or K99 award were overrepresented in a subset of institutions, whereas FTR01 awardees with F32 fellowships and those with no training award were evenly distributed across institutions. Finally, training awardees from the largest institutions were overrepresented in the faculty of the majority of institutions, echoing data from other fields where a select few institutions supply an overwhelming majority of the faculty for the rest of the field. These data give important insight into how trainees compete for NIH funding and faculty positions and how institutions prefer those with or without training awards.

SUBMITTER: Pickett CL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6797166 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The increasing importance of fellowships and career development awards in the careers of early-stage biomedical academic researchers.

Pickett Christopher L CL

PloS one 20191017 10

Excessive competition for biomedical faculty positions has ratcheted up the need to accumulate some mix of high-quality publications and prestigious grants to move from a training position to university faculty. How universities value each of these attributes when considering faculty candidates is critical for understanding what is needed to succeed as academic faculty. In this study, I analyzed publicly available NIH grant information to determine the grants first-time R01 (FTR01) awardees held ...[more]

PMID: 31622388

Similar Datasets

Project description:The primary individual research career development awards for emergency medicine (EM) investigators are the K08 and K23 awards. To the best of the authors' knowledge, postaward productivity of EM K08 and K23 awardees has not been previously described. The objectives were to describe EM researchers who have received K08 or K23 awards and to evaluate their postaward federal funding and publications.This was a cross-sectional study, conducted during January 2012, of clinician-scientists who previously completed EM residency or fellowship programs and have received K08 or K23 awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) between fiscal years 2000 through 2011. Awardees were identified through the NIH reporting tool (NIH RePORTER). Postaward funding was abstracted, including R01-equivalent funding for K awardees who completed their K training by the end of the 2011 fiscal year. Postaward publications (with journal impact factor) were tabulated for all K awardees using PubMed and Journal Citation Reports. An e-mail survey was also conducted during September and October 2012 to describe the awardee characteristics (demographics and research background) of all EM K awardees using REDCap electronic data captures tools. Simple descriptive statistics are reported.Sixty-three EM awardees were identified; 24 (38%) were K08 awardees, and 39 (62%) were K23 awardees. Of the 38 (60%) awardees who completed their K training, 16 (42%) obtained subsequent federal funding, with six (16%) obtaining R01 funding (median time from end of K award to R01 award was 4.5 years). Overall, EM awardees published a mean (±SD) of 4.0 (±1.3) manuscripts per year (after the start of their K awards); the mean (±SD) impact factor of the journals in which these manuscripts were published was 4.5 (±5.7). Forty-five (71%) of EM K awardees responded to the survey. Respondents had a median age of 36 years (interquartile range [IQR] = 35 to 38 years), and 33 were male (73%). The median time from completion of residency to start of the K award was 6 years (IQR = 4 to 7 years), with 27 (60%) completing a research fellowship prior to the K award.Over 40% of EM K awardees who completed their career development training subsequently obtained federal funding as principal investigator (PI) or co-PI, while approximately one in six obtained R01 equivalent funding. Given the numerous barriers facing emergency care researchers, EM K awardees demonstrate good postaward productivity.

Project description:The United States government makes a substantial investment in biomedical training programs each year. However, for most trainees, these opportunities do not translate into career progression in academic research pathways. Only about one-fifth of postdoctoral fellows eventually secure a tenure-track faculty position, and even among these candidates, attrition is high. Although a number of factors govern career choices and career longevity, the transition from trainee to faculty is a challenging process and requires knowledge and skills that are not necessarily developed during a traditional university experience. Many postdoctoral fellows receive adequate training in research skills and scientific communication, but new faculty report not being sufficiently prepared for the job search process and for starting their labs. To address this critical training gap, the ITERT core (Interdisciplinary Translational Education and Research Training) and the Office of Postdoctoral Fellows at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center implemented a structured course for both postdoctoral fellows and senior PhD students to provide formalized training for successfully navigating academic positions in biomedical research. Here we report on the pilot Navigating Academic Careers course conducted in 2021-2022 for 30 PhD students and postdocs. The nine-module course was conducted over 13 weeks in 25.5 h instructional sessions. The key educational objectives included 1) navigating the job application and the interview/negotiation process, 2) hiring, leading, and mentoring lab personnel and program support staff, 3) project administration and financial stewardship, 4) managing time and work-life balance and 5) developing collaborations, branding, personalized niche, and networking. Survey-based analysis at the time of the course was used to capture the participants' assessment of the course content, organization, and delivery, with a follow-up survey conducted approximately 2 years post-course (2024) to evaluate longer-term impacts of the training. Initial in-course assessment revealed that 89.9% of respondents found the scope and instructional content appropriate, and 91.1% found the course relevant and applicable to their career needs. Longer-term post-course evaluation indicated that 80% of respondents applied the learnings of the course, that 80% reported feeling more confident in navigating an academic job search, and that 66.6% continued to report agreement with the course preparing them for their current role/ongoing job search, with 46.7% already securing jobs in academic research, including as independent faculty. The outcomes of this pilot course suggest that integrating this into the broader postdoctoral training curriculum can enhance both the transition and early-career success of talented scientists-in-training into working professionals in biomedical careers, as faculty and science-trained staff.

Dataset Information

The increasing importance of fellowships and career development awards in the careers of early-stage biomedical academic researchers.

Publications

The increasing importance of fellowships and career development awards in the careers of early-stage biomedical academic researchers.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets