Developmental Research Project Program

RI-INBRE Developmental Research Project Program (DRPP) Project Summary The overarching goal of the Rhode Island IDeA-Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (RI-INBRE) program is to improve institutional capacity for biomedical research excellence and student experiential training in the State of Rhode Island. The primary function of the RI-INBRE Developmental Research Project Program (DRPP) is to design and oversee various competitive funding mechanisms designed to meet the varying research needs and career stages of participating investigators at all nine RI-INBRE network institutions. This includes two research-intensive institutions, six Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) and one community college. The RI-INBRE Research Project mechanisms include Early Career Development awards for early-career investigators at URI/Brown and the PUIs and Collaborative Research awards for early-career faculty at the PUIs who collaborate with an established URI/Brown investigator. The DRPP also solicits and evaluates applications for the training-intensive Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship awards for PUI investigators. In the renewal period, the DRPP will continue to adjust its funding structures and activities to better support the developmental research pathways for students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-stage investigators. We will create pilot awards to provide seed funding for very early-stage investigators. In addition, we will create proposal development pilot awards to support investigators collecting preliminary data for extramural proposals. These mechanisms will complement the existing DRPP awards by providing additional defined steps on the developmental scaffold. This will help early career investigators to move toward independence and competitiveness for research grants. We will expand our pool of external mentoring consultants to provide early-career investigators with independent expert advice. Expanding research training opportunities for students and postdoctoral fellows will produce a robust pool of trainees ready to fill biomedical positions in Rhode Island. Taken together, these new DRPP initiatives will improve the training environment for multiple levels of the biomedical research workforce, which will help build biomedical capacity and retain talent in Rhode Island.