Jessica L. O'Hara
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a new policy concerning career development K awards and part-time institutional appointments. The policy allows K award recipients to reduce their appointments to less than full-time in consideration of personal or family circumstances.
According to the notice released Wednesday, January 21, 2009, “K awardees may request to reduce their appointment to less than full-time (but not less than three-quarter time) for a period not to exceed 12 continuous months during the K award project period. However, awardees may not simultaneously request a reduction in appointment status from full-time to part-time and a reduction in percent effort to less than 75%.” At the time of application and initial award, all candidates must meet the full-time appointment requirement as well as commit at least 75% effort to research and career development activities.
NIH also recommends that K awardees consider increasing their percent effort on the K award to greater than 75% to compensate for the anticipated effect of the part-time appointment on career advancement. Examples of circumstances provided by NIH that may require a change in appointment status or percent effort include personal or family situations such as parental leave, child care, elder care, medical conditions, or a disability. To request a reduction to part-time status, “the grantee institution must submit a request and documentation to the NIH awarding component supporting the need for a reduced faculty appointment or percent effort and assuring the institution’s continuing commitment to the scientific and research career development of the awardee.” For more details on eligibility and requests, please see the NIH notice.
Through the Association of Specialty Professors (ASP) Task Force on Part-time Careers, chaired by Mark Linzer, MD, ASP has been actively working on garnering NIH support for part-time faculty. In March 2007, the task force—with members representing the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine member organizations—sent a letter to then-NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, MD, requesting modifications to part-time eligibility rules for K awards. As stated in the letter, the task force recommended NIH “support for part-time faculty be permitted regardless of the reason for part time status as long as the applicant presents a cogent plan for accomplishing the work in less than a full-time position.” In response to ASP’s proposal, the revised NIH policy stipulates that each K awardee request must describe the anticipated impact of a part-time appointment on career progress during the remainder of the K-award period as well as requires the awardee’s mentor to provide a revised mentoring plan.