Background
The mission of the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) is to reduce the impact of breast cancer in California by supporting research on breast cancer and facilitating the dissemination of research findings and their translation into public health practice. Founded in 1993, when breast cancer activists joined forces with scientists, clinicians, legislators and University of California officials to seek passage of the Program's enabling legislation, CBCRP was designed to push breast cancer research in new, creative directions. Funded primarily by a California state tax on tobacco, the CBCRP has provided over $110 million in research funds to investigators throughout California.
The Breast Cancer Research Council, which is an advisory committee to the CBCRP, provides vision, sets research priorities, conducts a programmatic review of submitted applications, and makes funding recommendations. CBCRP funds research across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including basic science, clinical sciences, public health sciences and technology development. A variety of awards are available, including career development awards. Postdoctoral fellowship awards are one of three career development awards meant to attract and train the most talented breast cancer researchers in California.
Postdoctoral scholars or “postdocs” are a group of scientists-in-training that is increasing in both number and importance. According to data gathered by the National Science Foundation, the number of postdocs nearly tripled during the period from 1979 to 1997, from just under 14,000 to 38,050. Postdoctoral scholars enter into a short-term agreement with an institution, doing research with a mentor that is intended to prepare them for a long-term professional research career. Postdoctoral appointments have quickly become the norm. In many fields, undertaking one postdoctoral appointment, if not more, has become essential to a continuing career path in research.
In the United States, women hold 37.4 % of all postdoctoral positions, a percentage that has remained relatively unchanged since the early 1980s. In 1997, there were 1,242 minority postdoctoral scholars, who made up 5.5% of the U.S. postdoctoral population. In 1998, slightly more than half of all postdocs in the U.S. were international scholars without permanent residency.
Since 1995, CBCRP has awarded 94 postdoctoral fellowship awards totaling almost $6.4 million. Awards are given to individuals with doctoral degrees to obtain postdoctoral research training in a field of breast cancer with a designated mentor, for up to two years at $40,000 per year. The primary goal of the postdoctoral fellowship award program is to draw talented new researchers into breast cancer research.
In 1999, the CBCRP staff and Council created a committee to develop a formal evaluation of the impact of CBCRP's funding efforts. The evaluation of the postdoctoral fellowship award program represents the first major evaluation of outcomes from CBCRP funded research. As a pilot study for the larger on-going evaluation, we hope to gain insight into the impact of our funding as well as critical insight into how to measure outcomes of our funding efforts. This preliminary report focuses on assessing outcomes from the first four years of the postdoctoral fellowship award program.
