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Global Health Matters > New Visiting Fellows Group To Spur More Contact and Help at NIH and Back Home

New Visiting Fellows Group To Spur More Contact and Help at NIH and Back Home

Visiting fellows (VFs) who travel far from their home nations to work at the NIH will have more networking avenues and help from NIH and NIH alumni colleagues on campus and when they return home, thanks to the formation of a new grassroots group, the NIH Visiting Fellows Committee (NIHVFC), which became official on July 1, 2003.

The genesis of NIHVFC came in 2001, when the FIC's then-Deputy Director, Dr. Sharon Hrynkow, initiated discussions with junior scientists at NIH from countries in the developing world and countries in economic transition to discuss how FIC could help recruit postdoctoral trainees from these countries and help them return home afterward. These initial discussions came in response to an informal FIC study which showed that of the 2,500 foreign trainees in the NIH Visiting Program, only 20 were from sub-Saharan Africa, and that other parts of the world in which the burden of disease is exceptionally high also were poorly represented.

The immediate result of FIC's discussions with VFs was the launch of the Global Health Research Initiative Program for New Foreign Investigators (GRIP), which supports the return home of young NIH-trained foreign investigators from the developing world by providing $50,000 per year, for 3 to 5 years, in the form of an R01 grant. Since its launch in 2002, GRIP has supported 25 young researchers' return home, providing partial salaries and support to develop first-rate scientific research projects. Furthermore, since 2001, VFs and FIC have been working together on grant-writing and mock peer review sessions to help VFs gain as much practical experience as possible in grant writing while at NIH.

The NIHVFC is a natural extension of early discussions and the development of GRIP. More than 30 fellows from several countries attended the first official NIHVFC meeting, held recently at NIH's Lawton Chiles International House. Invited participants included senior NIH leaders who were asked to serve as advisors to the group: Dr. Sharon Hrynkow; Donna Vogel, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the NCI Fellowship Office; Philip Chen, Ph.D., Senior Advisor to the NIH Deputy Director for Intramural Research; Norka Ruiz-Bravo, Ph.D., then Director of Extramural Programs at NIGMS and now NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research; and Candelario Zapata, Chief of the NIH International Services Branch. Also participating at the launch was William Steiger, Ph.D., Special Assistant for International Affairs to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The NIHVFC will be led in its first phase by Valeria de Mello Coelho, Ph.D., a VF from Brazil, and Devyani Haldar, Ph.D., and Kamala Tirumalai, Ph.D., VFs from India. Initially, NIHVFC will represent fellows from developing countries only, in particular from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, with a view to later expanding membership to all fellows. "Developing countries" is an operational term based on gross national product per capita and does not necessarily reflect a country's development status. "The Committee's main goal is to increase networking ability among visiting fellows while they are on campus and to help maintain their connection to the NIH and to each other after they return home," Dr. Tirumalai said. "People returning to their home countries often have spent many years away, and it can be a struggle to navigate the bureaucracy to establish yourself professionally." But if fellows maintain links with the NIH, "both parties can benefit," she said.

The NIHVFC intends to develop strategies to improve the training experience of VFs while they are at NIH and encourage the establishment and maintenance of strong institutional links with NIH after they complete their training and go back to their home countries. The group also wants to strengthen mechanisms for helping VFs cope with the many questions that arise during their NIH stay about administrative and career issues. The NIHVFC will work closely with the NIH fellows committee and other existing groups as it moves forward.

As an important step toward building a viable networking structure for former, current, and future VFs, NIHVFC proposes to establish an alumni database and a Web site for members. The database, supported by FIC and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, will be a major tool for NIH-trained scientists and will allow them to access colleagues—past, present, and future—as they continue their research careers. The Web site could offer a chat room and information about job and grant opportunities and FIC/U.S. resources available to scientists on their return home. It could also help identify and provide information for potential NIH visiting program fellows. NIHVFC proposes that a pilot alumni association focus on four countries: Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa. "These countries have a critical mass of former visiting fellows and local sponsors willing to provide infrastructure support and to facilitate access to information," Dr. Coelho said.

FIC Acting Director Dr. Sharon Hrynkow acknowledged the group's great progress in a short time and offered to work across NIH to identify funds needed to support key efforts.

"Fogarty has been supporting us all this while," Dr. Tirumalai said, proffering special thanks to FIC's Hrynkow for her "unflagging" support. To move forward for the benefit of junior scientists from low- and middle-income nations, she urged all VFs to become involved in the group and help it thrive.