Development Core

The DC funds pilot project small grants. We offer a competitive program – open to all PDHP affiliates – of internally peer-reviewed small grants to conduct high-priority pilot or demonstration projects designed to increase the success of proposals to NIH for full-scale projects.

The DC provides periods of intensive research mentoring for junior scientists. This competitive program for those classified as “new investigators” by NIH offers four weeks of intensive research proposal writing support for junior scientists, with structured feedback from senior scientists and experienced professional research staff.

The DC offers ongoing proposal support and peer review of proposals. We offer and will expand an integrated set of services to improve the quality of grant proposals, including consulting on proposal preparation, administrative shell preparation services, and peer review modeled on NIH study section review processes.

William G. Axinn (Director,  PDHP Development Core) is a research professor at the Institute for Social Research, a professor in the Department of Sociology and at the Ford School of Public Policy, and a faculty affiliate at the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. He is a sociologist and demographer whose research interests center on fertility and family demography. Axinn’s program of research addresses the relationships among social change, the social organization of families, intergenerational relationships, marriage, cohabitation, fertility, and mental health in the United States and Nepal. He also studies the interrelationships between population and the environment and new techniques for the collection of social science data.