Research Career Development & Strategies

Developed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Making the Right Moves provides practical advice and strategies for those seeking or just entering tenure-track faculty positions on the best academic and research career moves. Topics addressed include understanding university structure, laboratory leadership, setting up a lab, time management, project management, getting funded, getting published, understanding technology transfer, collaboration, teaching, and course design.

An addendum to the Making the Right Moves book above, this publication from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Burroughs Wellcome Fund provides an overview of the NIH peer-review process and the typical timeline one can expect when serving as a peer reviewer for the National Institutes of Health.

This site provides an overview of early-career funding options offered by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) within the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The kiosk is designed to help investigators navigate the National Institutes of Health Career Award (K Series) System and decide which K Award best fits their needs, situation, and research interests.

This website explains the distinctions between the agency’s two categories related to new investigator status and provides information on grant mechanisms designed specifically for New and/or Early Status Investigators.

The National Institutes of Health now offers early-career investigators the opportunity to become grant reviewers for their Center for Scientific Review (CSR). First established in 2011, more than 800 early-career investigators have now taken advantage of this program. Additional details about this program including eligibility criteria can be found on the Early Career Reviewer Program web page.

The National Science Foundation’s premier Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program emphasizes the dual nature of faculty members - research and teaching - and encourages recipients to fully pursue both while in the developmental stages of their careers.

This CAREER website provides access to information on program contacts and abstracts of previously awarded CAREER projects.

This book of articles compiled by ZJ Pei, a former CAREER awardee, incorporates helpful tips from other CAREER awardees. Although some hints are dated and no longer conform to current NSF requirements, the overall informative nature of this book keeps it relevant. (Provided with permission from the author.)

Part of our e-Book Series, Research Funding Opportunities for New Investigators, is designed to assist faculty seeking early career funding opportunities. Arranged by federal and non-federal sponsors, this e-book may also be searched by keyword using the Adobe Acrobat Find Feature.

ORDE has developed this CAREER Award Toolkit to familiarize early-career investigators with the Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offered by the National Science Foundation. This Toolkit is a great starting point and puts information from a variety of sources in one place for investigator convenience.