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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Effective mentorship is critical to the success of early stage investigators, and has been linked to enhanced mentee productivity, self-efficacy, and career satisfaction. The mission of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) is to provide all trainees across the biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and social sciences with evidence-based mentorship and professional development programming that emphasizes the benefits and challenges of diversity, inclusivity, and culture within mentoring relationships, and more broadly the research workforce. The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and activities of NRMN. KEY HIGHLIGHTS: NRMN serves as a national training hub for mentors and mentees striving to improve their relationships by better aligning expectations, promoting professional development, maintaining effective communication, addressing equity and inclusion, assessing understanding, fostering independence, and cultivating ethical behavior. Training is offered in-person at institutions, regional training, or national meetings, as well as via synchronous and asynchronous platforms; the growing training demand is being met by a cadre of NRMN Master Facilitators. NRMN offers career stage-focused coaching models for grant writing, and other professional development programs. NRMN partners with diverse stakeholders from the NIH-sponsored Diversity Program Consortium (DPC), as well as organizations outside the DPC to work synergistically towards common diversity goals. NRMN offers a virtual portal to the Network and all NRMN program offerings for mentees and mentors across career development stages. NRMNet provides access to a wide array of mentoring experiences and resources including MyNRMN, Guided Virtual Mentorship Program, news, training calendar, videos, and workshops. National scale and sustainability are being addressed by NRMN "Coaches-in-Training" offerings for more senior researchers to implement coaching models across the nation. "Shark Tanks" provide intensive review and coaching for early career health disparities investigators, focusing on grant writing for graduate students, postdoctoral trainees, and junior faculty. IMPLICATIONS: Partners from diverse perspectives are building the national capacity and sparking the institutional changes necessary to truly diversify and transform the biomedical research workforce. NRMN works to leverage resources towards the goals of sustainability, scalability, and expanded reach.
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The authors contend that increasing diversity in academic medicine, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics requires the adoption of a systematic approach to retain minority high school and college students as they navigate the scientific pipeline. Such an approach should focus on the interrelated and multilayered challenges that these students face. The authors fuse an alternative conceptualization of the scientific and technical human capital theoretical framework and the theory of social identity contingencies to offer a conceptual model for targeting the critical areas in which minority students may need additional support to continue toward careers in science. Their proposed asset bundles model is grounded in the central premise that making greater progress in recruiting and retaining minorities likely requires institutions to respond simultaneously to various social cues that signal devaluation of certain identities (e.g., gender, race, socioeconomic status). The authors define "asset bundles" as the specific sets of abilities and resources individuals develop that help them succeed in educational and professional tasks, including but not limited to science and research. The model consists of five asset bundles, each of which is supported in the research literature as a factor relevant to educational achievement and, the authors contend, may lead to improved and sustained diversity: educational endowments, science socialization, network development, family expectations, and material resources. Using this framework, they suggest possible ways of thinking about the task of achieving diversity as well as guideposts for next steps. Finally, they discuss the feasibility of implementing such an approach.
