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APPENDIX D 57 Let me just touch on two ways I think this can be dealt with. First, clinical training funds (what few there are left) at the new Center for Mental Health Services (formerly part of NIMH) now are geared strictly toward training service providers. A clear mandate that NRSA funds ought to be used to train clinical researchers might provide some counterbalance. Second, clinical psychology graduate students ought not to be the only natural source for clinical researchers. In fact, those who are now making major contributions to clinical research often came from other behavioral science areas. Putting in place incentives for students to get research experience with clinical populations, whether these students are in clinical programs or in programs that are cognitive, social, experimental, measurement, etc., could generate a new core of researchers concerned with clinical issues. Women in Science There is one more general research training issue I want to raise. APS has been working for the past few years with NIMH to address that Instituteâs problem of not attracting younger researchers in the behavioral and social sciences. In 1980, 26 percent of ADAMHA investigators were age 36 or younger; in 1988 that figure dropped to 13 percent. And, at NIMH, 95 percent of this loss was due to fewer grants to young psychologists and social scientists. The good news is that NIMH is about to create a research support mechanism that will be geared to newer investigators in the behavioral sciences. The bad news is that I donât think this addresses the entire problem. Psychology has been at the forefront of many movements in science. One is the number of women entering a scientific field. But as more women enter the field, what becomes ever more clear is the incompatibility of the traditional new faculty role with the lifestyles of women and young families. Yet, these same women are critically needed in psychological research. I encourage this Committee to consider some new mechanisms that would create increased postdoctoral opportunities in a way that is more compatible with these lifestyle issues. We are not talking about women who are any less committed or less serious than their male counterparts. But we are talking about real life issues. Perhaps there could be a program for younger faculty similar to NSFâs Women Scholars Program of several years ago. Or perhaps it could be patterned on the Minority Fellowship Program or on the Minority Access to Research Careers that have been effective in encouraging ethnic minorities to enter the research end of psychology, or even on the older National Institute of Education program that was focussed on women and minorities. There may be additional possibilities. My point here is to raise the general issue as one worth considering. STATEMENT BY TERRY ANN KRULWICH The opportunities that are at hand for continued and accelerating progress in fundamental and applied biomedical sciences are extraordinary. To optimize the yield from these opportunities, a significant challenge is making careers in biomedical research attractive to and attainable by the most talented and creative American students. Given the manner in which this country achieved greatness in the first place, it is also healthy and appropriate that our training institutions be open to those outstanding foreign students who genuinely want to pursue research careers and may ultimately be eligible to do so in this country. Such training activities in American universities should not be seen as a disclaimer vis a vis training of domestic students. During this particular year, the experience at my own institution suggests something of an upturn in the highly qualified students from undergraduate schools in the United States who are embarking on Ph.D. training in biomedical sciences, and who have impressive prior research exposure. In order to further expand and nurture this group, early science education and the image of the scientist have to be improved; the availability of traineeships/ fellowships must be maintained and, if possible, expanded; a constructive attitude towards science as a career must be developed; a strong portfolio of diverse career options (including academic and industrial research, technology, teaching, and various ratios thereof) should be developed and disseminated to undergraduates and graduate students; and, of course, the health of the research funding situation and the perception thereof is essential. You might consider allowing payback credit (if payback is retained) for teaching science to undergraduates (in small schools with little or no research) or advanced high school students or science-oriented minority students in special enrichment programs. This will dignify such a professional commitment and
APPENDIX D 58 acknowledge its relationship to the health of the enterprise. Programs that are targeted towards minority groups are essential, and the earlier they start and the more sustained they are, the better--with the caveat that no such program should be mounted without established criteria whereby its success can and will be monitored. And the NRSA awards? First, do no harm. Do not further reduce the source of the very best in training, and encourage the special advantages of such awards. These include programmatic features (especially for predoctoral trainees) that foster rigorous theoretical training in broadly based fields. Trainees need such exposure so that while they conduct their own research in a well-defined problem area, they are not trapped by a narrow perspective or limited capability for adapting to new trends in a later career. The periodic establishment of new training grants, in cross-disciplinary interfaces, is highly desirable. NRSA programs also provide freedom to investigate a number of different training settings before choosing a laboratory whose style and focus are syntonic. And the hallmark of the institutions that generally compete well for institutional NRSA awards, or individuals with their own fellowships, is the presence of a peer group and training faculty that is optimally equipped to create an environment, transmit the values, and carry out the explicit training. In connection with improvements that might be made, I would like to focus on just a few areas. The first is in the area of retention of minority students. During the past decade there has been an emerging emphasis on the recruitment of minority students to training programs in biomedical sciences and even the development of new NRSA awards for such students. It is important that the success of the programs in retaining students be monitored, and that factors in successful retention and longer term success of the trainees begin to be identified. Innovative approaches to retention should be fostered, e.g., the cooperation between different institutions in metropolitan areas to help provide a critical mass of minority students for programs that will foster their collective and individual morale and progress, or more formalized participation of research faculty from research- intensive institutions as mentors to young faculty/students at smaller, more teaching-oriented institutions with funded minority programs. The second area that I would like to highlight is the problem of whether we are providing the means whereby our NRSA trainees, who encompass many of the most talented future biomedical scientists, can go on to work in new and creative research endeavors. I feel strongly that the opportunities for success in many rapidly moving fields, together with the constrained funding times, conspire to make new investigators conservative in their first (often FIRST) grant proposals and project plans. That is, increasingly newly hatched junior faculty propose a direct take-off from prior work which offers only minimal differentiation from the parent postdoc lab. It is too risky to propose something more individual and novel. This hurts the whole enterprise. I would like you to consider a program whereby for all postdoctoral NRSAs, a period (launch period?) of ? (6 months? 8 months?) at the end of the award be set aside for the trainee to develop his/her own initiative, to start to gather those crucial initial data. Preceptors on such awards will have to pledge their willingness in advance. The specific plan will need to be developed while the trainee is engaged in the training project and then filed (3 months?) before the launch period. Some supply funds should be set aside for support of the work to be conducted. That work should be distinct from the work of the training lab in some fundamental way, should be the intellectual property of the trainee (no ultimate coauthorship by postdoc mentor, etc.). The period should be used to garner initial data and feasibility analyses for an original idea. The preceptor gives up lab space and some amount of supplies in return for all the prior support of a postdoc in the lab. For women or men, who are spending time âat homeâ with a baby, maybe special âlaunch periodsâ in an earlier postdoc lab or some nearby lab could be fostered through existing NRSAs or extensions thereof; these could allow a new parent some support to develop an independent project area during a partial âdown time.â Finally, there should be even further encouragement of the individual mentors of NRSA trainees to act as mentors for more than just the project. A global program statement about training in responsible conduct in science is insufficient. Each mentor (they are usually the best scientists on campus) must be willing not only to ask trainees to help review articles (many, if not most, do) but must be willing to discuss the conflict of interest and ethical problems involved therein and model appropriate behavior. Attempts by Program Directors to engage these very stellar faculty members are often met with the âitâs the local girl-scout cookie sale timeâ reaction. Trainees,
