If you are hosting an eligible trainee displaced by the recent hurricanes and they will be doing work related to your eligible NIGMS grant, you may want to consider applying for a Diversity Research Supplement to support them.

Below is some information about the diversity supplements.  After reading this information, please contact me to discuss your application prior to submission.

The diversity supplements announcement can be found at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-16-288.html; I encourage you to review it. Below are the NIGMS specific pages with our philosophy and the FAQs.

If the candidate is from one of the eligible underrepresented backgrounds, and the candidate has not been supported by the parent grant then I encourage you to consider the diversity supplement.  Electronic applications, via eRA Commons, are received and reviewed on a rolling basis and it can take roughly 12 weeks to reach a funding decision.  You can find more information about the NIGMS diversity supplement program at http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Research/Mechanisms/Pages/PromoteDiversity.aspx, including links to its NIGMS Diversity Supplement Program Philosophy and Frequently Asked Questions and Answers. 

In terms of assessing the merit of the diversity supplement application, we look at:

• General Information:
• Start Date (Is it realistic? NIGMS has roughly a 12-week funding decision timeline)
• Diversity Category and corresponding documentation
• Statement about how the candidate is currently funded
• PI Information:
• Biosketch- personal statement should include philosophy of training and commitment to promoting diversity
• PI’s Training History (i.e., individuals trained and their subsequent career/professional outcomes)
• If the PI is an assistant professor, we may recommend that a more senior mentor be identified and included as part of the mentoring team
• Candidate Information:
• Candidate’s Biosketch (Candidate's training plan should be consistent with the Candidate's Statement and especially with their future career aspiration)
• Statement from the candidate, in the Biosketch or elsewhere, about what motivated them to enter science, what motivates them to stay in science, and what do they want to do next
• Academic performance (transcripts are required for all candidates except for post-docs, unofficial copies are acceptable)
• If there are any hiccups in the academic performance of the candidates, please have the candidate address them.
• Training:
• Research Training:  Provide a description of how the research and career development experience will expand and foster the research capacities of the candidate; how the proposed experiences relates to the specific goals and objectives of the parent grant; a description of the mentorship that will be provided; and how will this experience make the candidate competitive for the next level.  This plan should be consistent with what the candidate states as their career aspiration.
• Candidate’s Career Training:  We look to see if there is a detailed training plan with a timeline that is appropriate for the candidate’s training stage (i.e., courses, didactics, seminars, grant preparation, career preparation activities, publication plan, etc.). We are looking for a well-thought out and tailored training plan that is individualized to the candidate’s needs, strengths, and weaknesses. This includes a plan for mentoring the candidate to submit applications for independent funding when applicable. The application should include information about what will follow the diversity supplement.