Winners:

2008

2007

 

 

 
Career Development Awards

Career Development Awards are intended to help faculty increase their exposure to senior colleagues at other institutions who can serve as collaborators, role models and sponsors. These awards could be particularly useful for Assistant Professors who are beginning to build their research program or for mid-career faculty moving in a more collaborative direction or trying to make contacts in a different research area.

The value of making connections with colleagues has long been recognized as extremely important to success in academics. In recent years research has become increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinaryxray, particularly in the sciences. With an increased emphasis on interdisciplinary science, social networks become even more important. Funding agencies are now investing a larger proportion of their portfolio in programs that facilitate multi-investigator, interdisciplinary, large budget projects. Because competition for these awards is intense, proposals that demonstrate an integrated collaboration from a team of PIs with a history of working together are generally much more competitive. Creating opportunities for faculty to meet senior colleagues with a
high degree of social capital could significantly affect their ability to participate in new collaborations or provide them with sponsorship. Such senior colleagues, whether they are potential collaborators or individuals who can provide informal mentoring, are generally not going to be present at the same institutions. Providing funding for individual faculty to develop peer networks, nationally or internationally, could greatly enhance their social capital and increase their access to opportunity.