Bethesda, MD
Description
Committed to its mission of conducting and supporting research that addresses the health needs of all sectors of the nation’s population, the Division of Lung Diseases, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NHLBI/NIH) seeks to identify issues that impact the training and retention of underrepresented individuals in the biomedical research workforce, assess the effectiveness of its current approaches, and subsequently improve its strategies toward achieving this goal.
Early stage investigators who received grant support through the NIH Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health Related Research Program were invited to a workshop held in Bethesda, Maryland in June, 2015, in order to (1) assess the effectiveness of the current NHLBI diversity program, (2) improve its strategies towards achieving its goal, and (3) provide guidance to assist the transition of diversity supplement recipients to independent NIH grant support.
Workshop participants participated in five independent focus groups to discuss specific topics affecting underrepresented individuals in the biomedical sciences: (1) Socioeconomic barriers to
success for diverse research scientists; (2) role of the academic research community in promoting diversity; (3) life beyond a research project grant: non–primary investigator career paths in research; (4) facilitating career development of diverse independent research scientists through NHLBI diversity programs; and (5) effectiveness of current NHLBI programs for promoting diversity of the biomedical workforce.
Several key issues experienced by young, underrepresented biomedical scientists were identified, and solutions were proposed to improve on training and career development for diverse students, from the high school to postdoctoral trainee level, and address limitations of currently available diversity programs. Although some of the challenges mentioned, such as cost of living, limited parental leave, and insecure extramural funding, are also likely faced by nonminority scientists, these issues are magnified among diversity scientists and are complicated by unique circumstances in this group, such as limited exposure to science at a young age, absence of role models and mentors from underrepresented backgrounds, and social norms that relegate their career endeavors, particularly among women, to being subordinate to their expected cultural role.