NIH appears to be trying to some headway in closing the gaps in diversity by promoting the strongest graduate students moving up thru the ranks slightly more quickly and helping them secure placements into post doctoral labs of their choosing.

Entitled DSPAN (Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience), the program pulls together a funding mechanism for senior grad students who have likely aged out of their F32s and training grant slots.  Students can grab up to 2 years of money to finish their thesis and then an additional 4 years to do an awesome postdoc. That’s a lot of awesome, folks.

Put your pants on kids, trainee money is up for grabs!

You can find out more about this DSPAN or F99/K00 award here RFA-NS-18-007.

The program is designed to facilitate completion of the doctoral dissertation and transition of talented graduate students to strong neuroscience research postdoctoral positions who are from diverse backgrounds underrepresented in neuroscience research.

You should probably read the small print on this RFA.

It does smack of irony that these students may struggle to find an R01 funded lab headed by a racial minority mentor, if that is what they choose to do. NIH has consistently refused to balance their portfolios even with consistent findings of gender and racial bias in review. Still blogging about this Francis Collins. Still waiting for you to call. Or just go ahead and implement DrugMonkeyBlog’s genius quick fix. Or maybe it’s a slow fix since s/he suggested it 6 years ago.

There is a bunch of blah-blah to check out about how you can’t go abroad to do your fellowship (yeah, we know….Fiji does have so many awesome labs. Sorry!), what constitutes a diverse hire and stuff but we’re sure your business adminstrator will be thrilled to read it.

Visit the NIH Blueprint website for more details and an informational webinar.

Here’s your weekend dancing squirrel gif. You’re welcome.

About the Author

Screen Name

Fighty Squirrel, PhD, Awe.Some.

About Me

The Fighty Squirrel is very thin pseud for a molecular and cellular neurobiology type who runs a lab studying neurodegeneration. She is mother to a 14yo half child/half honey badger and 16yo half child/half border collie and a Reviewing Editor at Journal of Neuroscience. She also sort of a badass at air hockey. She speaks for herself unless her employer likes it, in which case it's patented.