Sunday, November 24, 2024
11/24/2024
ABSTRACT The NIH Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) initiative aims to transform institutional culture by developing communities of biomedical researchers and supporting institutions that are committed to increasing diversity and inclusive excellence. The University of New Mexico (UNM) is a Hispanic Serving Institution, and a Carnegie Very High Research Activity institution. Thus, recruitment and retention of a diverse biomedical faculty workforce aligns with the NIH mission and will promote inclusive excellence in a majority-minority state. The UNM FIRST program is hiring nine early career faculty across six STEM departments. The cohort will consist of two interdisciplinary clusters: neuroscience and data science. The central hypothesis is that this model will successfully hire and retain a diverse cohort of early career faculty and the changes implemented as part of UNM FIRST will support the enhancement of inclusive excellence practices across UNM. The long-term goal is to increase the diversity of the NIH biomedical faculty workforce while building on recent progress toward inclusive excellence in our institutional culture. Our specific aims are: To recruit, promote, and retain a diverse cohort of biomedical faculty, and to systemically transform UNM’s culture towards inclusive excellence. The UNM FIRST Leadership Team, which is comprised of five female leaders at UNM, is working closely with the UNM Leadership. The latter includes an Institutional Innovation Implementation Board (Senior Vice Provost, Vice President for Research, Associate Provost for Faculty Success, College of Arts & Sciences Dean, and ADVANCE Director) that was created to support UNM FIRST and is poised to work closely with the UNM FIRST Leadership Team. The significance of the UNM FIRST program is that a diverse cohort of NIH-funded biomedical faculty devoted to inclusive excellence will achieve success as UNM faculty, that UNM will become an institution where inclusive excellence is permanently established, and that UNM faculty (including UNM FIRST faculty) will train the next generation of diverse NIH- funded scientists. Importantly, this supplemental funding will provide support for the UNM FIRST faculty hires to attend the annual NIH FIRST Annual Grantees Conference. The goals of UNM FIRST faculty participation in this conference are to: extend their peer network and thereby increase collaboration and support opportunities, facilitate their communication within this network about academic challenges faced and solutions reached, increase their nationwide network among the participating program faculty (e.g., PIs/MPIs) and NIH staff, and enhance their overall professional development.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
