USBJI Young Investigators Initiative Career Mentoring Program.

This proposal seeks funding to continue support (R13 conference grant from NIAMS) for the Young Investigator Initiative (YII). The YII originated as one of the flagship programs of the United States Bone and Joint Initiative and was established to train the next generation of musculoskeletal investigators in the art of preparing high quality grant proposals. In the past year the YII has become a key program within the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS). This change represents a new and exciting future for the YII as it expands the scope of young investigators that can benefit from the program and ensures a base of operation that will remain stable into the future. The permission letter for submission of this proposal is included in the appendix. The program/conference occurs over two weekends separated by 12-18 months. In the first phase of the YII, early stage clinical and basic science investigators learn the principles of proposing hypothesis-driven research and preparing significant and innovative grant proposals. They are assigned 2-4 experienced mentors who work with them in developing their research question. The young investigators then write and submit a grant proposal. After receiving a critique of their proposal from the awarding agency’s review group, they return for the second phase of the YII program (usually after 12-18 months). In this phase, the participants learn how to respond to the critique and refine and improve the application. The application is then resubmitted. This iterative process continues until the investigator receives funding. The success of the YII mentoring program has been remarkable. Since its establishment in 2005, over 1,000 scientists have applied for training. 550 have been accepted. These individuals have received 1,918 grants totaling over $600 million dollars. The success rate for funding is 59.9%. The scientists that comprise the mentoring faculty are all former NIH study section members with many years of experience. Their involvement in this program is voluntary. They participate because of their commitment to keep full the pipeline of new musculoskeletal investigators. The team responsible for managing the YII program is Nancy Lane, M.D., UC Davis, Howard Hillstrom, Ph.D. Hospital for Special Surgery and Edward Puzas, Ph.D. University of Rochester.