@article{0709e794e8ce4a3eb682bec37630eb79,
title = "Overstretched and overlooked: solving challenges faced by early-career investigators after the pandemic",
abstract = "The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a detrimental effect on research. However, little has been done to identify and solve the unique challenges faced by early career investigators (ECIs). As a group of American Cancer Society-funded ECIs, we provide recommendations for solving these challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic.",
author = "Humphries, {Brock A.} and Hwang, {Priscilla Y.} and Kendrick, {Agnieszka A.} and Kulkarni, {Rajan P.} and Pozzar, {Rachel A.} and {San Martin}, Rebeca",
note = "Funding Information: It is also imperative that funding agencies consider and offer formal guidance on how pandemic-related slowdowns in productivity will be accounted for in an equitable manner. For example, the National Institutes for Health (NIH) has issued clear guidelines to allow for extensions of F and K fellowships available to ECI trainees. An innovative grant mechanism recently announced by the NIH, the Katz R01, does not require preliminary data and instead measures rigor via careful citation of already published literature, which favors ECI faculty whose labs were affected by the shutdown. Furthermore, funding agencies should automatically offer no-cost extensions to all ECIs without requiring justification. In addition to no-cost extensions, funding agencies should allow for a break in reporting for all ECI groups. We suggest reporting deadline to be re-evaluated at the end of 2022 to allow for all ECI groups to focus on lab activities during the recovery period. In the short term, funding agencies could also reassign unused travel funds to flexible funds for childcare expenses or to cover other needs; provide bridge-funding to cover salary for grants that cannot be completed; or increase financial support for grantees who are patients or are immunosuppressed. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Elsevier Inc.",
year = "2021",
month = oct,
doi = "10.1016/j.trecan.2021.07.005",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "7",
pages = "879--882",
journal = "Trends in Cancer",
issn = "2405-8033",
publisher = "Cell Press",
number = "10",
}