Strategic Recommendations to Promote Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Principles in the Pediatric Scientific Workforce
Domain: Institutional Resource Distribution
Focus: Expectations of Unfunded (Non-Externally Funded) Research Time
Author: Danielle E. Soranno, MD and Stephen Daniels, MD, PhD
Editor: Samudragupta Bora, PhD
On behalf of the Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Society for Pediatric Research
Background:
Individual pediatric faculty (primarily based at U.S. academic medical centers) negotiate with section/division/department leadership regarding the distribution of their full-time equivalent workload across externally funded and unfunded (non-externally funded) research efforts, clinical, and/or teaching load, and administrative/leadership/service commitments. These effort allocations are dependent on a range of factors related to institutional priorities, fiscal responsibilities, as well as the career goals and interests of the faculty member. There is a consensus within the pediatric scientific workforce that considerable inter-institutional and intra-institutional disparities exist in the distribution and expectations of unfunded research efforts. For example, depending on the type of research (pre-clinical vs. clinical) and typical start-up packages, some pediatric faculty are allotted initial “protected” (internally supported) time to work towards securing external research funding, while others are not. In certain institutions in the U.S., a junior faculty (instructor/assistant professor) is allocated 75% unfunded research time for a period of 3 to 5 years while they apply for an NIH career development award or equivalent. In contrast, other faculty pursuing research have a full clinical load with the expectation to work towards external research funding when they are not on clinical service. Further, administrative and service commitments are often added on to an otherwise fully allocated 1.0 full-time equivalent faculty, with adequate evidence that women faculty and those belonging to groups underrepresented in medicine (regardless of their gender) tend to take on more of these citizenship tasks.
What Can National Organizations Do?
- Establish norms on the value of faculty efforts across all four realms of the academic mission: clinical care, teaching and mentorship, research, and advocacy.
- Advocate for realistic expectations of faculty effort distribution for unfunded research activities, highlighting the core professional values of promoting transparency, fairness, and equity.
- Develop guidelines on the minimum effort allocation for unfunded research activities, specific to the pediatric scientific workforce and relevant for various investigator roles corresponding to the range of T0 to T4 research.
- Outline recommendations by subspecialty organizations for academic RVUs within their field.
- Raise awareness to guide 1) institutional leadership to develop appropriate research support, including transparent, fair, and equitable faculty effort distribution, and 2) individual faculty to better understand standard practices and responsibilities concerning minimum effort allocation for unfunded research activities.
- Organize training and formal mentoring for institutional leadership to develop and/or adapt best practices suitable to individual contexts.
- Collect adequate high-quality data and monitor trends concerning institutional distributions of faculty effort allocations for unfunded research activities to determine outcomes across key metrics, such as research productivity (rates of successful career awards, K to R conversion, publication record), faculty attrition, and faculty wellbeing.
What Can Institutions Do?
- Develop section/division/department-specific guidelines describing standard practices, responsibilities, and realistic expectations of individual faculty effort allocation across different academic career stages, pertaining specifically to the pediatric scientific workforce without active external funding.
- Standardize research effort allocation for faculty without external funding through transparent, fair, and equitable implementation of written policies, developed in active consultation with relevant stakeholders, and reassessed regularly to adapt to the constantly changing pediatric research landscape.
- Standardize research support, including start-up packages and bridge funding, corresponding to the range of T0 to T4 research, to support unfunded research endeavors of promising faculty across different academic career stages.
- Recognize service work (related to pediatric scientific mission and workforce) at the local/regional/national/international level appropriately towards faculty research effort (e.g., serving on NIH study section counting towards faculty research effort).
- Recognize biases in faculty effort allocation on unfunded research activities through intensive long-term education and intermittent refreshers, followed by adequate response plans to account for identified and potential obstacles to implementation.
- Require implicit bias training for faculty and leadership and implement an anonymous reporting system for observed bias and racism in faculty effort allocation on unfunded research activities.
- Allocate strategic investment in resources for faculty with special circumstances to optimize their effort allocation on unfunded research activities.
- Collect adequate high-quality data and monitor trends concerning institutional distributions of faculty effort allocations for unfunded research activities to determine outcomes across key metrics such as research productivity (rates of successful career awards, K to R conversion, publication record), faculty attrition, and faculty wellbeing.
What Can Allies Do?
- Advocate for transparent, fair, and equitable faculty effort distribution corresponding to the range of T0 to T4 research, pertaining specifically to the pediatric scientific workforce without external funding along with a targeted focus on junior faculty, women faculty, and those belonging to groups underrepresented in medicine (regardless of their career stage and gender).
- Facilitate section/division/department leadership to recognize and appropriately manage service commitments that may be outside individual faculty’s career goals.
- Support individual faculty to routinely reassess their career progression and balance of effort as unfunded research faculty, along with the strategic alignment of current effort allocation with long-term goals.
- Establish strategies to ensure faculty across different academic career stages are well-informed of standard practices, responsibilities, and institutional expectations of faculty effort allocation, pertaining specifically to the pediatric scientific workforce without external funding.
- Utilize corporate knowledge of established faculty regarding institutional systems/processes/culture to strategically advocate for more junior colleagues for a transparent, fair, and equitable faculty effort distribution, pertaining specifically to the pediatric scientific workforce without external funding along with a targeted focus on women faculty and those belonging to groups underrepresented in medicine (regardless of their career stage and gender).
- Participate in and promote implicit bias training at all levels of the academic institution.
What Can Individual Faculty Members Do?
- Actively negotiate with section/division/department leadership for the position that fits individual faculty goals, rather than fit their effort for a predetermined or outdated career vision.
- Advocate for transparent, fair, and equitable faculty effort distribution corresponding to the range of T0 to T4 research, pertaining specifically to the pediatric scientific workforce without external funding.
- Promote anonymous reporting of observed bias and racism in faculty effort allocation on unfunded research activities.
- Establish a formal and/or informal mentoring committee with diverse expertise, including senior and peer mentors within and outside the pediatric scientific workforce, to help guide the individual faculty across various aspects of their unfunded research effort allocation, academic career, as well as outside of work.
- Evaluate career goals, career progression, and balance of effort as unfunded research academic, with the understanding that career aspirations may shift and evolve to strategically align with the constantly changing pediatric research landscape.
- Initiate yearly meetings with section/division/department leadership (in consultation with research leadership) to assess current effort allocation for unfunded research activities. Ideally, this meeting is a constructive space to reassess individual faculty’s career trajectory and either continue forward as-is, bolster specific support to optimize effort allocation, or perhaps consider suitable opportunities to change directions (e.g., shift from investigator to clinical track appointments).
Link to Comprehensive References on Unfunded (Non-Externally Funded) Research Time