National Institutes of Health

National Institutes of Health Institutional Training Grants

The NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) program is designed to ensure that a diverse pool of highly trained scientists is available in appropriate scientific disciplines to address the Nation's biomedical, behavioral, social, and clinical research needs.  NRSA training programs are designed to develop or enhance research opportunities for individuals at a range of educational levels who are interested in research careers and thereby promote a diverse scientific research workforce.

• Program directors should be established investigators in the scientific area in which the application is targeted and capable of providing both administrative and scientific leadership to the development and implementation of the proposed program.
• Trainee eligibility is based upon U.S. citizenship or Permanent Resident status and being enrolled in research or clinical doctoral or postdoctoral program. Trainees receive competitive stipends based on their educational level and experience to help defray living expenses during their research training. Medical healthcare coverage and an allowance for tuition and fees and training related expenses are provided.

Pitt NIH Institutional Training Grant Programs are currently housed within the Schools of Arts & Sciences, Dental Medicine, Engineering, Medicine, Nursing, Public Health. Other schools with clinical applications, such as Education and Social Work, are encouraged to explore these funding opportunities.
 

Pitt's NIH Institutional Training Grant Community and Listserve

Our institution prides itself for its scientific training community and over the past 5 years, has maintained an average of 60 NIH Institutional Training Grants. Revenue from NIH training programs averages $20 million annually and current NIH training programs support an average of 180 predoctoral and 176 postdoctoral trainees annually. A sense of community is fostered among our training grant directors so each might serve as a resource to faculty contemplating a training grant application.

Subscribe to the NIH Institutional Training Grant email distribution list to keep up to date on training grant announcements and discussion by contacting traininggrants@pitt.edu.

Key Features of an NIH Institutional Training Grant

Proposed program should provide high-quality research training, and mentored research experiences, and are expected to help trainees develop:

• A strong foundation in scientific reasoning, rigorous and reproducible research design, experimental methods, analytic techniques, including quantitative/computational approaches, and data gathering, storing, analysis, interpretation and sharing appropriate for the proposed research area.
• Individual career development plans to identify areas of strengths and areas of career and personal growth with the ability to identify and engage mentors.
• Skills in engaging in their chosen area of science including networking, presentation and publication skills and opportunities to interact with members of the broader scientific community at appropriate scientific meetings and workshops.
• The ability to think critically, independently, and to develop important research questions to initiate and conduct research and approaches that push forward their areas of study.
• A commitment to approaching and conducting research responsibly and with integrity.
• The competencies to work effectively with colleagues from a variety of backgrounds and scientific disciplines to contribute to inclusive and supportive scientific research environments.
• The knowledge, professional skills, and experiences required to identify and transition into careers that sustain biomedical research in areas that are relevant to the NIH mission.

Strategic Collaborations

The NIH encourages interdisciplinary and inter-institutional training programs.

For example, Pitt capitalizes upon its proximity to Carnegie Mellon University and has collaborated on multiple NIH institutional training programs sharing faculty expertise across both institutions:

• The Integrated, Interdisciplinary, Inter-University PhD Program in Computational Biology leverages the strengths of its two hosts institutions, collectively world leaders in computer science, engineering, and medical research with long track records of innovation in computational biology research and education.
• The Institutional Program in Cell and Molecular Biology: A Graduate Training Path to Promote Traditional and Nontraditional Professional Outcomes is a novel collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Department of Cell Biology and the School of Arts & Sciences Department of Biological Sciences, in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University Department of Biological Sciences.
• The Behavioral Brain (B2) Research Training Program is a collaboration between the two psychology and two neuroscience PhD programs across both institutions which is training researchers who can work at the interface of behavioral and biomedical science.

Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering and the School of Medicine have long histories of collaborating and sharing faculty resources in the field of bioengineering. T32 programs include:

• Bioengineering in Psychiatry Training Program
• Biomechanics in Regenerative Medicine Training Program
• Cardiovascular Bioengineering Training Program

See Pitt’s university-wide NIH Training Grant Program Directory for information about these and other novel training programs.

Request a Guided Tour of Pitt's NIH Resources

Training grant programs are rewarding enterprises for both the trainees and for our institution, however the application process is a complex and time-consuming endeavor, especially the compilation and maintenance of the training data tables. Some of the resources highlighted on this website are publicly available and some are only accessible behind Pitt’s SSO authentication firewall. Faculty unfamiliar with the NIH’s training grant mechanisms may request a guided tour of Pitt’s resources by emailing traininggrants@pitt.edu.