Howard Hughes Medical Institute Special Program

New HHMI Program Aims to Nurture Nation's Best Early Career Scientists

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) today announced a major new program that will provide much-needed support to some of the nation's best early career faculty at a time when they most need the help. The new program is aimed at researchers who have run their own labs for two to six years and are now at a critical point in establishing their own vibrant, independent research programs.

Through a national competition that opens today, HHMI plans to select as many as 70 early career scientists from a wide range of scientific disciplines relevant to biological and medical inquiry. These scientists, most of whom will be assistant professors at the time of the award, will receive six-year, non-renewable appointments to HHMI and receive the substantial research support necessary to move their research in creative, new directions. HHMI will invest more than $300 million in this first group of scientists and plans a second competition in 2011.

HHMI is seeking scientists from a wide variety of fields, including all areas of basic biological and biomedical research, and areas of chemistry, physics, computer science and engineering that are directly related to biology or medicine. Candidates are being asked to apply directly to HHMI, an approach the Institute has used successfully in previous competitions in 2006 and 2007. In the past, faculty members had to be nominated by their institutions for HHMI research positions.

Successful candidates are expected to meet the following criteria:

• Have a doctoral degree.
• Hold a tenured or tenure-track position as assistant professor or higher academic rank at one of the eligible institutions**; if the applicant is at an institution that does not have a tenure track, he or she should hold an equivalent appointment. Federal government employees are not eligible.
• Have at least 2, but no more than 6 years of experience since their initial appointment as an assistant professor (or equivalent). To meet this requirement the applicant's first faculty position as assistant professor must have begun no earlier than June 1, 2002 and no later than September 1, 2006.
• Those selected as HHMI early career scientists may hold only one other early career award, such as those from The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Searle Foundation, The Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, or the NIH Director's New Innovator Award or the NSF CAREER Award.
• To be appointed as an early career scientist, the successful candidate must devote 75% of his or her time to the direct conduct of research.

Scientists who wish to be considered for this competition must indicate their intention to submit an application by April 30, 2008. The deadline for completed applications is June 10, 2008. Panels of distinguished biomedical researchers will evaluate the candidates' applications. Final selections are expected to be made by February 2009.

Detailed information about the competition - including the list of eligible institutions and access to the secure application site — may be found at the HHMI website.

**Dartmouth is an eligible institution.

Posted: 03/11/08