Short Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons Program (STEP-UP)

Added: Mar 30, 2017 5:09 pm NIH is made up of 27 Institutes and Centers (IC's). Most of these ICs receive appropriations directly from Congress, and each has its own specific research agenda, often focusing on particular diseases or body systems. The National Institutes of Health's (NIH) mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.

The mission of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) is to conduct and support basic and clinical biomedical research and research training. One ways NIDDK reaches out to train the next generation of research investigators is through the Short Term Research Experience for Underrepresented Persons Program (STEP-UP) established in 2002. STEP-UP helps to build and sustain a biomedical, behavioral, clinical and social science research pipeline focused on NIDDK mission areas by providing high school and undergraduate students from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical research (individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and individuals with disabilities) with eight to ten consecutive weeks of summer research experience.

The need for the proposed requirement will support services necessary to provide the NIDDK with independent evaluative measures of the STEP-UP program in order to better measure outcomes and process of the program.