H&SS Working Group Proposals

The purpose of the Columbia H&SS working groups is to promote creative interdisciplinary collaboration and research around themes of critical importance to population health. There is no single template for these groups. Successful groups have pursued a variety of activities, including pilot research and external funding proposals, workshops and conferences, and development of publications such as special journal issues. What they have in common is the pursuit of innovative ideas in population health and the creation of new clusters of research at Columbia.

The working group director(s) will take responsibility for articulating the goals of the group, identifying and recruiting members, planning activities, and ensuring that the group maintains reasonable progress. The group will have significant lattitude, and need not have its entire course mapped out in advance. It must, however, have a coherent and interesting idea or theme, a director committed to advancing the group's agenda, a small number of core members who are committed to regular participation and at least an initial plan for how to proceed.

We will ask the groups to be ready to report to us and to RWJF about how the group is engaging scholars from different disciplines and moving innovative research agendas forward. The working group director(s) will provide a brief progress report on a semi-annual basis, and should be available to attend the annual finalist visit in late January and the RWJF site visit in the spring in order to discuss the group's activities and contributions to interdisciplinary research in population health.

H&SS Scholars and faculty should discuss their ideas with the Site Directors before developing a more formal proposal. The proposal should include the following elements:

Goal
State your long term and short term goals for the working group you plan. (Half page)

Activities

Indicate the activities you plan to achieve the group's goals. (One page)

Membership
List the individuals (along with their affiliations) who have committed to be core members of the group and participate regularly in its activities.

Budget
After an award level is determined, funds will be allocated to the working group to be spent as the group sees fit. Information about planned activities and estimates of their cost is helpful in decisions about level of funding; investigators are encouraged to include this information in their proposal if it is available.

CVs for the working group director(s)