Training Plan
The worksheet to prepare to write your training plan is here. The slides for this session can be found here.
Training Activities
There should be specific activities you can articulate to achieve each goal. Some examples:
- Mentor-based training, for example for laboratory skills or concepts that can only be learned from an expert.
- Coursework. Limit this to no more than one course per year, unless this is the only way to learn this. Should be upper level courses not general concepts unless you are changing fields.
- Workshops. Particularly hands-on workshops, some good example are Glucose Clamping the Conscious Mouse: A Laboratory Course,
Isotope Tracers in Metabolic Research: Principles and Practice of Kinetic Analysis, Summer Session In Epidemiology, or the NIDDK Central Repository Workshops.
- Professional Development Classes, such as the CDI Career Development Series, the MICHR K-Writing Workshops, Rackham Professional Development Workshops , and OGPS Professional Development Events.
- Relevant Conferences and Meetings, to present your research and build your professional network.
Think about how these activities are integrated in your research project, for example if you require certain knowledge or skills to complete an aim, that should occur earlier in your fellowship. Make sure to mention how it relates to your research, so that the research and training plans are well integrated. These should not be driven by “usual activities”. You can include things like lab meetings, or journal clubs, or presenting at CDI-MOD, but those would probably happen independnt of the support. Think about what this fellowship will enable.
Your Team
For each goal make sure one or two people are responsible for supervising and assessing your progress. THis can be your sponsor, but try to include other people as well. They should be invovled in your research as well, but you can also pick collaborators, co-sponsors and co-investigators specific to training goals if that is best. Make sure to clearly articulate to them their roles and responsibilities so that their letters of support are consistent with what you write. Think (or ask them) what the best evidence is that they can effectivly perform this role. Could include publications, or perhaps prior trainee success.
Meetings
Describe for each goal/person how often you will meet and in what format. You should also meet approximately twice a year with the entire team to discuss training and research progress.
Review Criteria (Need to Update for new PA)
- If a team of sponsors is proposed, is the team structure well justified for the mentored training plan, and are the roles of the individual members appropriate and clearly defined?
- Are the qualifications of any collaborator(s) and/or consultant(s), including their complementary expertise and previous experience in fostering the training of fellows, appropriate for the proposed project?
- Is the proposed research project of high scientific quality, and is it well integrated with the proposed research training plan?
- Is the research project consistent with the candidate’s stage of research development?
- Is the proposed time frame feasible to accomplish the proposed training?
- Does the training plan provide adequate opportunities to present and publish research findings and meet with scientists in the community at national meetings as the work progresses?
- Will the training plan provide the professional skills needed for the candidate to transition to the next stage of their research career?
- Are the proposed research project and training plan likely to provide the candidate with the requisite individualized and mentored experiences in order to obtain appropriate skills for a research career?
- Does the training plan take advantage of the candidate’s strengths and address gaps in needed skills? Does the Training Plan document a clear need for, and value of, the proposed training?
- Does the proposed training have the potential to serve as a sound foundation that will clearly enhance the candidate’s ability to develop into a productive researcher?
- Are the research facilities, resources (e.g., equipment, laboratory space, computer time, subject populations, clinical training settings) and training opportunities (e.g. seminars, workshops, professional development opportunities) adequate and appropriate?
- (For clinical training) If the applicant is proposing to gain experience in a clinical trial as part of his or her research training, is there evidence of the appropriate expertise, experience, resources, and ability on the part of the sponsor(s) to guide the applicant during the clinical trial research experience?
- (For clinical training) If proposed, will the clinical trial experience contribute to the proposed project and/or the applicant’s research training?
Suggestions and Ideas
- Make sure to crossreference training plan and research plan.
- Add a timeline of activities, integrating research milestones.
Resources