NHLBI research training and career development programs.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is committed to its mission of improving the public health through a comprehensive program of basic and clinical investigations, clinical trials and other population-based studies, and demonstration and education research projects. Fulfillment of this goal hinges on the existence of sufficient numbers of highly trained individuals from a wide variety of disciplines and specialties. Developing and maintaining this expertise is an important and continuing priority of the Institute. The majority of the Institute's training activities are conducted under the auspices of the National Research Service Award (NRSA) program, through which it supports a modest number of individual postdoctoral fellowships and a sizable number of institutional training grants at both the predoctoral and the postdoctoral levels. Since funding for the NRSA program reached a plateau several years ago, it has been an increasing challenge to provide attractive training opportunities to sufficient numbers of young scientists. In the context of training budget constraints, the NHLBI has taken measures to ensure that NRSAsupported training slots are used to the fullest extent possible. For instance, we are looking closely at use of predoctoral and postdoctoral slots by training program directors and are making reductions to programs that do not recruit sufficient numbers of trainees to fill the available slots. We are also trimming slots from new awards, as appropriate. An additional measure involves the timing of receipt of NRSA institutional grant applications. The usual start date for NHLBI training grants is July 1, and commitments made by training program directors to enroll new trainees are generally made early in the calendar year. Therefore, to give potential training program directors sufficient time to plan for recruitment of trainees, the Institute makes funding decisions for training grant applications only once a year, in February. To meet this schedule, the NHLBI requests submission of competing applications on two dates, January 10 and May 10, for consideration at Advisory Council meetings in October and February, respectively. Applications submitted on September 10 for review at the May Council are not considered for support until the following fiscal year. Although the Institute has allowed