CATALyST eligibility criteria

Who is eligible to apply for the CATALyST K12 Scholarship Program?

Candidates who are considering applying to multiple scholar programs should determine whether concurrent application is allowed under each program’s funding mechanism.

Candidates must be U.S. citizens, non-citizen nationals, or individuals lawfully admitted for permanent residence who have earned a clinical or research doctorate, including, but not limited to PhD, ScD, DrPH, MD, DO, DC, ND, DDS, DMD, DNS, DVM, OD, DPM, EngD, DPT, OTD, PharmD, DSW, PsyD, or equivalent doctoral degree, at the time of appointment.

Candidates must also demonstrate commitment to conducting research within learning health systems focusing on rapid and continuous learning and translation of findings into patient-centered care. There are no specific requirements that scholars need to be postdoctoral fellows or junior faculty or that persons of differing ranks (e.g., fellow vs. junior faculty) must be provided the same level of salary support.

Candidates must be able to commit a minimum of 75% of full-time professional effort conducting research career development activities associated with this award. The remaining 25% effort can be divided among other research, clinical, and teaching activities but only if these activities are consistent with the goals of the award, i.e., the candidate's development into an independent investigator.

Additional details on citizenship, training period, and aggregate duration of support are available in the HHS Grants Policy Statement at https://www.ahrq.gov/funding/policies/hhspolicy/index.html.

All scholars appointed to this grant can move on to individual mentored career development support grants upon completion of their appointment on the K12 grant. Any scholar appointed to an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)-supported K12 program or an AHRQ-supported individual mentored career development may not exceed a total of 5 years of AHRQ-mentored career development support.

Individuals are eligible for placement as a scholar if they have been, or currently are, the PD/PI of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) or AHRQ R36, F31, or F32 grant, or a Federal or non-Federal award that duplicates the provisions or research goals of these grants, and otherwise meet all other eligibility criteria. The scholar will have to terminate the existing award before being appointed to the K12 program. Individuals are also eligible to be scholar candidates if they have been, or currently are, the PD/PI of an NIH or AHRQ R03 or R21 grant, or a Federal or non-Federal award that duplicates the provisions or research goals of an R03 or R21 grant.

Individuals are NOT eligible to be scholar candidates if they:

• Have simultaneously submitted or have an application pending peer review for any other Federal career development award, or a research project grant (R01). However, individuals may concurrently apply for an AHRQ or NIH Small Grant (R03) or Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21);
• Have simultaneously submitted or have an application pending peer review for any non-Federal research grant, contract, or cooperative agreement over $100,000 direct costs per year;
• Have been or are currently a PD/PI on any other Federal mentored career development awards;
• Have been or are currently supported on an institutional K12 grant or KL2 (or similar grant);
• Have been or are currently a PD/PI on a Federal research grant (such as R01, R29, P01) or subproject leaders on Program Project (P01) and Center Grants (P50); and/or
• Have been or are currently a PD/PI on peer-reviewed non-Federal research grants, contracts or cooperative agreements over $100,000 direct costs per year.

Disciplines of interest

• Nursing
• Pharmacy
• Epidemiology
• Economics
• Health services research
• Bioinformatics
• Medicine
• Social & behavioral sciences

Questions?

Contact: Susan Brandzel
CATALyST Program Administrator
Susan.X.Brandzel@kp.org