To recognize our most successful Institutional Training Grants (T32), NICHD has implemented the NICHD MENTOR Award for Excellence in Research Training. The MENTOR Award consists of two competitive phases of up to five years each. Recipients who successfully complete the first phase will be eligible to apply for the second phase using an abbreviated application format, reducing the burden of the application process for the training program and for reviewers. The application will undergo an accelerated review process featuring expedited peer review.
To be considered for a MENTOR Award, a T32 training program must have been funded continuously by NICHD for at least 10 years; it must receive an outstanding score on its competing continuation application; and it must have a history of providing a successful training environment. In addition, the training program must have demonstrated superior attention to its trainees' and/or the community's needs. Examples of superior attention include particularly effective courses, mentoring, training strategies, and trainee-faculty interactions; superior strategies for providing cross-discipline training, or training in both basic and clinically oriented research; superior training in health issues that disproportionately affect minority populations; and superior recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority trainees.
Criteria for evaluating the competing continuation application for a second phase of the MENTOR Award are: Consistent overall design and goals; the same or equivalent program director and training faculty; demonstration of continued training success; and a consistent or improving applicant population. In addition, the program must demonstrate continued and improving attention to the needs of its trainees and to the needs of the community. The second phase may last for up to five years. During the final year of the MENTOR Award, grantees may submit a normal competing application to continue their training program as a standard T32.
An Institutional Training Grant Program cannot apply for a MENTOR Award. NICHD staff and members of the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council will select a proportion of our most successful, qualified applications following the annual T32 competition. We intend to convert no more than three T32 grants to MENTOR Awards per year, not to exceed a total of 15 active MENTOR Awards at any one time (about 10 percent of NICHD's T32s). The conversion of a T32 training grant to a MENTOR Award and the continuation of a MENTOR Award for a second phase must be approved by the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council.
