Chapter 1: An Overview of the NRSA Predoctoral Training Programs and Their Evaluation

The year 2000 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the National Research Service Award (NRSA) training programs and their implementation. Established by the National Research Service Award Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-348), these programs were conceived as setting a new direction in federally sponsored research training (National Institutes of Health Task Forces for the Review of NIH Biomedical Research Training Programs, 1989; National Research Council, 1994). Although research training had been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1930, funds were now to be targeted at training investigators (as opposed to health professionals) and channeled explicitly to those fields in which there was an identified need for biomedical and behavioral research personnel.