LEADS 2.0

Low-resourced academic institutions are challenged to prepare the next generation of cutting-edge researchers as faculty face several barriers in securing NIH grant funding for their research. Persistent barriers to obtaining NIH grants at low-resourced institutions remain. Addressing such barriers (e.g., insufficient number of mentors, limited opportunities for collaboration, under-utilization of career development awards) is imperative if we are to build a robust biomedical research workforce. To tackle some of these barriers, we formed a partnership with 9 institutions and created a program called LEADing Scholars to success (LEADS). The purpose of LEADS was to help launch the research careers of postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty (hereafter Scholars) with a one-year fellowship where Scholars received professional skills training such as grant development, team science, and developing research careers with the ultimate goal of Scholars submitting successful grants. Over the next five years, we will offer a two-year fellowship to Scholars, focusing on innovative new components based on feedback from the Scholars and the literature. These include personalizing the learning and making it experiential, enhancing mentoring, leveraging the benefits of team science to form research teams, and using the LEADS alumni network to serve as leaders and near-peer mentors to help Scholars succeed. We believe these elements will increase the productivity of the Scholars by addressing their unique individual needs and providing opportunities for success. In addition, we plan to focus on building sustainability at the partnering institutions so that the best practices of LEADS can be institutionalized at the partnering sites and offered across the country.