To be eligible for the K12 Scholars Program, prospective Scholars must:

• Be US citizens, non-citizen nationals, or permanent residents.
• Have a full-time faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh at the time of his/her appointment to the program.
• Be able to commit a minimum of 75% effort toward research and career development while in the program.
• Have a doctorate (e.g., MD), PhD, or equivalent doctoral degree.
• Be an Assistant Professor.
• Be within 5 years of your first faculty appointment.
• Typically, be within 10 years of your terminal degree or completion of clinical training. If you are beyond that, please justify why the K12 is right for you at this time.

Individuals are not eligible if:

• They have another federal career development award (K series).
• They are a former or current program director or principal investigator on any NIH research project grants (this does not include NIH small grants [R03], Exploratory Developmental [R21], or Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer [R43, R44] grants) or equivalent non-Public Health Service peer-reviewed grants that are more than $100,000 direct costs per year.
• They are a former or current project leader on subprojects for program project (P01) or center grants (P50).

• Customized Career Development Plan (CCDP). The K12 Program Directors will work with each Scholar and mentoring team to develop an educational program uniquely tailored to meet the Scholar’s needs and goals. The CCDP allows Scholars to master a core didactic set of competency-based skills needed for successful multidisciplinary translational research careers.
• Mentored Research. The central component of the K12 Scholars Program will be the conduct of one or more research projects under the mentorship of a multidisciplinary team of outstanding scientists (two or more mentors from different disciplines). Scholars will be supported, from the beginning of their tenure on the K12, to use their research as initial studies and to apply for independent funding. The Program Directors will meet regularly with Scholars to facilitate progress in their research, remove any barriers, and ensure that Scholars are making progress.
• Training Components. The K12 Scholars Program provides a broad and deep range of training opportunities in fundamental clinical and translational methods, design and analysis, advanced CTS methods, grant writing, and interdisciplinary professional skills. Additional training activities include leadership and scientific management skills, time management, effective oral and written communication, team science, stakeholder engagement, and entrepreneurship and commercialization processes.
• K club. Scholars participate in a biweekly K club, in which they workshop pieces of their external K applications in real-time with their peers, facilitated by an expert senior faculty member. K club typically focuses on aims pages but can also include career development, mentoring plans, and research strategies.

Duration of Appointment:

• K12 Scholars are given consecutive, 12-month appointments. Program leaders assess each Scholar’s career progress annually.

The K12 Scholars Program provides the following financial support:

• Seventy-five percent effort and salary support. The K12 Scholars Program employs a University-based salary cap of $120,000. At the required 75% effort, the program cap will support salary expenses during a 12-month period of $90,000 maximum.
• An annual amount of $25,000 to support a Scholar’s career development activities, including expenses related to research studies (e.g., personnel, supplies, professional services); tuition and fees; and conference travel. Conference travel is limited to $2,500 annually

Each K12 Scholar must have a multidisciplinary mentoring team with a minimum of two primary mentors from different disciplines. The primary mentors must be NIH-funded, independent investigators who are highly accomplished and have a proven commitment to developing mentees’ careers.

The entire team is expected to meet at least monthly to design and plan research projects, discuss progress, develop solutions to specific problems, provide advice on project management, and help guide data collection, analysis, and manuscript preparation.

The ICRE has implemented several mentoring resources, which are available to K12 Scholars and their mentors. We also provide K12 Scholars with half-day training on mentoring, which emphasizes mentor expectations, effective communication, goal setting, career planning, and constructive feedback.

K12 Handbook

A comprehensive record of information relevant to the K12 including information about Mock Reviews and the Annual Meeting of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science.