Overview of the K12 Program
The Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center at the University of Michigan is the administrative home for the HEAL National K12 Clinical Pain Career Development Award (HEAL K12).
The HEAL K12 is a mentored career development program designed to provide protected time for clinicians and scientists to focus on training in and conducting clinical pain research. Award provides up to $100,000/year in salary plus fringe benefits, and $50,000/year in research support costs, for up to 3 years.
This award is intended for scholars who may not be ready for a traditional K-award or independent research (R) award, come from institutional environments that cannot adequately support the scholar’s career and/or research objectives, and/or who are unable to form a mentoring team that would make them competitive for a training or independent research award in clinical pain.
Annual travel to the 3-day NIH PURPOSE Conference on Pain Education and to the two-day Ann Arbor Summer Pain Short Course is expected.
Eligibility
- The candidate must aspire to be a clinical pain researcher housed within any educational or health services institution in the U.S. that has resources to conduct clinical research.
- Candidates will hold a doctoral degree (e.g., MD, DO, DDS, PharmD, or PhD) and be faculty within the first five years of appointment or postdoctoral fellows with a pending faculty appointment.
- Scholars must be citizens or non-citizen nationals of the U.S. or have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence at the time of appointment.
- The department or division Chair of the candidates’ home institution must commit to providing the candidate a minimum of 75% protected time for this training.
Tailored Training Program
- Remote didactic training in pain science.
- Completion of a clinical research project, that could be used to provide pilot data to support future grant applications.
- Didactic course work in regulatory sciences, research ethics, biostatistics, patient/community engagement and/or specialty electives relating to topics of interest.
- Attendance at career development seminars, pain conferences, and the 3-day NIH PURPOSE Conference on Pain Education (required).
- Presentation of research through local, national, and international events, UM Pain Short Course (required).
- Cross-disciplinary mentoring designed to assist with career development and research.
Application Requirements
- The HEAL K12 award follows a 2-tier application process.
- Tier-1: 2-Page Letter of Intent
- Tier-2: Full Application
- Review Process
- LOIs will be reviewed by HEAL K12 Directors and NIH program staff.
- Full Applications will be reviewed by the HEAL K12 study section. Finalists along with their primary home mentor(s) will be invited for an interview with the HEAL K12 Directors.