Developmental Core
About
The Developmental Core provides funding and mentoring support for New and Early Stage Investigators (ESIs) who are interested in pursuing an HIV research career. We work collaboratively with other CFAR Cores provide mentoring resources for CFAR ESIs.
The UNC CFAR Developmental Core provides up to one year of seed funding for: 1) Traditional Developmental Awards (TDA), 2) Secondary Data Analysis (SDA) responding to the related CFAR Notice of Special Interest (NOSI); and 3) Microgrants related to CFAR-funded research. Awards are made to one of the following:
- New and Early Stage Investigators*
- Experienced investigators new to HIV
A senior mentor is required to assist ESI applicants and Awardees in preparing applications, project implementation, manuscript preparation, and writing a directly-related larger grant proposal to the NIH. Research can be basic, translational, clinical, or social/behavioral, and can address treatment, transmission, or prevention.
*Early Stage Investigators are defined as never having received an R01 or R01 equivalent grant as a PI; holding a terminal degree (e.g. PhD, MD); is eligible to serve as PI on an NIH grant; and is affiliated with the UNC CFAR.
Developmental Cohort
The CFAR Developmental (“Dev”) Cohort is open to all UNC CFAR-affiliated ESIs and post-docs. Virtual Dev Cohort meetings are held on the third Monday of the month from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM throughout the academic year. The Dev Cohort leverages a wide range of professional development resources and provides opportunities for structured feedback from senior CFAR investigators on members’ research.
Each year’s Cohort will participate in activities such as grant-writing and manuscript-writing workshops, peer and senior investigator review and feedback on members’ Specific Aims, and a Q&A session with a panel of NIH reviewers. Additional meeting topics are driven by members’ interests and may include such topics as effective poster design, impact measurement and visualization, communicating research findings to lay audiences, and choosing where to publish.