What are Institutional Training Grants?
Institutional training grants (ITG) are external funding mechanisms provided by government agencies, private foundations, or other organizations to support the education and training of students and early-stage researchers, often in specific fields like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and health sciences disciplines, although faculty from other schools, such as social work and education, may find them equally valuable.
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Most traineeship programs focus on supporting diverse cohorts of students in research-based degree programs, or in postdoctoral training, to develop skills, knowledge and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM or health-related careers. The programs aim to ensure effective training of graduate students and postdoctoral trainees to best prepare them for the workforce. Many institutional traineeship solicitations emphasize broadening participation, workforce development, institutional capacity building, and strategic collaborations. These grants typically fund multi-year training programs that can support undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral trainees, or early-career faculty positions depending on the sponsoring entity.
Training grants offset the cost of stipends, tuition and fees, and training related expenses, including health insurance, for the appointed trainees in accordance with support levels approved by the sponsoring entity. Awards are made to institutions for investigators to recruit a cohort of trainees who participate in organized approaches to research training, mentoring and career development. Eligible trainees may be undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students depending on the sponsoring entity. There are other forms of training grants that are not institutional where trainees apply directly to the sponsor for support. This website is exclusively focused on institutional grants.
Writing an ITG is fundamentally different than writing a more traditional research proposal that articulates your research question, hypotheses, and methods. Instead, these are very much programmatic proposals that benefit from a team that includes education design expertise. For example, many institutional traineeship solicitations emphasize broadening participation, workforce development, institutional capacity building, and strategic collaborations. In addition, they often require robust plans for recruitment, mentoring and support for funded trainees.
Why are Institutional Training Grants Valuable?
Institutional training grants (ITG) are prestigious, big, visible, highly competitive and impactful! They fund serious innovation.
- These are valuable in higher ed specifically because they:
- Build Research Capacity: Training grants enable institutions to develop and expand their research programs by supporting the training of new researchers, who contribute to the institution’s research productivity and innovation.
- Enhance Institutional Reputation: Receiving training grants from prestigious funding agencies enhances an institution’s reputation and visibility in the academic community, attracting high-caliber students and faculty.
- Attract Talent: Training grants can make an institution more appealing to prospective students and researchers, as they often come with fellowships, research opportunities, and professional development resources.
- Foster Collaboration: Many training grants encourage or require interdisciplinary and cross-departmental collaboration, which can strengthen academic networks and create a richer learning and research environment.
- Support efforts to diversify and increase belonging in disciplines: Some institutional training grants are geared towards increasing diversity in specific fields where particular populations are underrepresented. By focusing on underrepresented groups, these grants help institutions enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion within their academic programs.
- Economic Impact: Training grants provide financial resources for stipends, research materials, and administrative support, positively impacting the institution’s economic ecosystem.
- Workforce Development: By training students and researchers in emerging or critical fields, institutional training grants help institutions align their programs with national workforce needs, benefiting both the institution and society.
These grants not only support the academic development of trainees but also advance the strategic goals of higher education institutions.