School of Medicine receives grant aimed at retaining clinical scientists
Program aims to help researchers with growing family caregiving responsibilities due to pandemic
Getty ImagesWashington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is one of 22 medical schools chosen to receive grant funding aimed at helping medical schools retain clinical scientists through the COVID-19 Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists competition.
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is one of 22 medical schools selected to receive funding aimed at helping medical schools retain clinical scientists.
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, along with the American Heart Association, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the John Templeton Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation and the Walder Foundation, announced Wednesday, Nov. 17, that 22 medical schools would receive a total of $12.1 million in grants through the COVID-19 Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists (FRCS) competition.
“As the nation’s largest funding collaborative advancing equity in the biomedical sciences, the COVID-19 FRCS is designed to support the strengthening of policies, practices and processes at U.S. medical schools to advance the research productivity and retention of early-career faculty experiencing mushrooming family caregiving responsibilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the group announced in a news release.
The collaboration is awarding $500,000 each to the U.S. medical schools and their affiliated hospitals that will together support at least 250 biomedical early-career faculty. The institutions receiving the funds will build programs that provide support to eligible faculty who are experiencing periods of caregiving crisis. The funds may be used, for example, to hire administrative personnel, statisticians and technicians.
“These vital supports will allow hundreds of brilliant contributors to scientific discovery to keep their important work on track while directly tending to the needs of their families,” the release said.
For more details about the program and the grant winners, see the collaboration’s news release.
