Academy to Probe Minority Programs

doi:10.1126/science.312.5774.671b

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Are federal programs to attract minorities into biomedical research working? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) doesn't know, and moreover, it doesn't know how to find out. So it's asked the U.S. National Academies to sponsor a workshop this summer on the best way to assess the dozens of programs NIH offers to attract minorities into biomedical research.

"We want to test some of the underlying assumptions for these sorts of interventions," says Clifton Poodry, head of the Minority Opportunities in Research division at NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which is funding the project. "We're looking for evidence-based interventions, not somebody's best guess."

The workshop won't assess the programs themselves, says National Research Council program officer Adam Fagen, a task that has proven to be devilishly difficult (Science, 20 January, p. 328). Fagen's first step is assembling a team to plan the July event, which will include 40 or so experts in evaluation science.