Houston Methodist commits to the career development and success of our faculty with a comprehensive suite of support for research, teaching and professional growth. The Faculty Development program was founded by and is steered by our Faculty Development advisory committees and the Houston Methodist Academic Institute president’s office. From professional services to seed funding and career milestone recognition programs, we continually invest in you and your continued success.
All Houston Methodist faculty have access to a dedicated liaison to navigate their research support and educational opportunities. Contact academicaffairs@houstonmethodist.org for assistance and more information.
The Houston Methodist Academic Institute offers workshops designed for faculty in leadership, teaching, mentoring and career development plus professional skills for seeking grant funding and disseminating their work. The Houston Methodist Academic Institute Course Catalog provides a complete listing of educational opportunities for faculty, with upcoming events shared on the Academic Events Calendar (attend.houstonmethodist.org) and on-demand content available at Watch Houston Methodist (watch.houstonmethodist.org). For more information, contact facdev@houstonmethodist.org for a copy of the course catalog or visit www.houstonmethodist.org/ faculty-development.
Career Development Pathways
1 Clinical and Translational Scientist Pathway
The Faculty Development program offers workshops in professional skills that are essential to building a successful academic career in clinical and translational research. Concept to Commercialization is a 12-week program that teaches faculty how to take an idea from a lab investigation to a product that can be brought to market. Case studies include real-world examples of products in the Houston Methodist product pipeline and those that have made it into clinical use. A liaison assists with a variety of needs— from connecting faculty to experts in planning pathways to regulatory approval, prototyping, transitions to GLP studies and cGMP production, early phase and first-in-human trials, and technology transfer and commercialization advice. The program also offers a variety of seed-funding programs, including a Translational Research Initiative fund designed to assist with moving innovations through this pipeline and securing extramural funding.
Essential Elements of InvestigatorInitiated Trials is an eight-week program that guides participants through funding, initiating and managing a clinical trial. Also offered is the Mentored Clinical Research Training Program in partnership with Weill Cornell. This intensive course prepares investigators to launch a clinical trial and pairs them with a mentor to advise them through the execution of the project. Clinical trialists also have access to assistance with protocol and regulatory document writing and a liaison service to navigate the administrative, regulatory, compliance and operational support infrastructure for clinical trials at Houston Methodist. Seed funding is available for early phase, investigatorinitiated clinical trials as well as salary support for early-career faculty dedicated to developing a career as a clinical trialist.
Faculty dedicated to education can grow their teaching skills through the Teaching and Learning Pathway, which includes didactic coursework, handson project-based learning, and the development of a mentor network. Clinical educators have access to experts in instructional, assessment and simulation activity design that support effective education programs. The Bookout Center Education Training Awards program provides funding for simulation-based education programs in graduate medical education, quality improvement and patient safety. Our Clinical Scholars Program offers competitively awarded salary support for early-career faculty dedicated to developing a career as a clinicianeducator.
Faculty Development Services
Houston Methodist faculty have access to expert services and one-on-one coaching from experienced faculty and research development subject matter experts who review and provide feedback on grant applications, manuscripts and clinical study protocols.
Research Development Services
The Faculty Development team of research development specialists identifies funding and publishing opportunities for our faculty proactively and by request. The team has an extensive network of senior editors and program officers who assist and offer training on digital tools and databases to strengthen your searches, including SciVal Funding Institutional and NIH Reporter. For more information, contact academicaffairs@houstonmethodist.org.
Grant Application Development and Scientific Writing
Faculty have priority access to a team of scientific writers, scientific illustrators, study design consultants and statisticians to assist with grant applications, addressing reviewer feedback, manuscripts and journal covers, graphic abstracts and study protocols. The team also can provide project management for larger multi-institutional and program project grant applications to ensure timely submission. For more information, contact academicaffairs@houstonmethodist.org.
Clinical Study Design and Statistics Services
Faculty Development can find the support you need for interventional and observational clinical studies. It provides observational study design and routine statistics services while ensuring your project stays in lockstep with compliance to streamline administrative reviews. The program can also connect you with systematic review and meta-analysis support through its library and make referrals to the Center for Health Data Science & Analytics big data and artificial intelligence research services, and clinical trial support center depending on your study needs. For more information, contact academicaffairs@houstonmethodist.org.
Education & Support Services for GME Programs
The Office of Curriculum and Education Development offers services in instructional, curriculum, assessment and simulation activity design. Whether you are planning a team training workshop, online module, high- or low-fidelity simulation or GME resident bootcamp—we can help. This team also collaborates with the CME, CNE and CPE education teams to ensure you can offer credit for continuing professional education activities. For more information, contact the Office of Curriculum and Education Development at oced@houstonmethodist.org.
Mentoring Matters Program
The Mentoring Matters Program was developed to build a culture of academic mentoring at Houston Methodist that is consistent with our ICARE values of integrity, compassion, accountability, respect and excellence. Interested faculty can work with experts to design a custom program for their team that will help academic mentors and mentees build meaningful and productive relationships. For more information, contact facultydev@houstonmethodist.org.
Mindfulness and Engagement Program
The Houston Methodist Physician and Provider Engagement and Resiliency program offers activities that develop your capacity to aim, sustain and re-focus attention also maintaining awareness of the “bigger picture” in challenging and stressful situations; it also helps you maximize existing strengths and minimize the harmful effects of stress on mind and body. For more information, contact providerresilience@houstonmethodist.org.
Intramural Funding Awards
Houston Methodist offers a range of competitive intramural funding opportunities to recognize career milestones and grow your research, teaching and scholarship. This program also administers calls for limited submission grant opportunities. Faculty can apply for awards through a streamlined, user-friendly online portal: intramural-awards.houstonmethodist.org.
Clinical Scholars Awards
The Clinical Scholars Award Program supports the distinct role that clinician-scientists, trialists and educators play in advancing academic medicine. This award aims to develop clinical faculty who possess the rare blend of skills needed to conduct research or clinical trials while educating trainees by supporting 20 - 50% of their time dedicated to academic work. Awardees must be an active Houston Methodist clinician at the time of the award start date.
Katz Investigator Awards
Applications for this prestigious award from the Jerold B. Katz Academy of Translational Research are open to researchers from any medical specialty conducting translational research. With generous support from the Jerold B. Katz Foundation, the program is designed to help investigators advance promising translational research projects and new technologies with commercial potential.
Intramural Funding Awards
NIH Competitiveness Awards
Eligible nominees up to and including an Associate Professor level must have applied as a Principal Investigator (PI) for an NIH grant, R01 or equivalent, that was not funded but scored within 10% above the pay line.
Houston Methodist Academic Institute Awards for Faculty Excellence
These awards recognize faculty for career milestones and their extraordinary accomplishments in translational research and education.
• Career Cornerstone Award recognizes faculty who have received their first career NIH R01 or equivalent NIH R series grant as Principal Investigator.
• Excellence in Peer-Reviewed Publication Award provides applicants who have a recent high-impact publication.
• Excellence in Education Award provides for applicants who have demonstrated excellence in education.
• Excellence in Transformational Research Award provides applicants who demonstrate exceptional achievement in clinical or translational research.
Discovery Seed Funding Programs
A variety of seed funding programs are available to spark new collaborations with partners and in specific research areas. While these programs change over time, the following are current examples.
• Neurospark Program Awards supports research projects to develop restorative therapies for patients impaired by neurological disease and injury who currently have limited treatment options.
• George and Angelina Kostas Research Center for Cardiovascular Nanomedicine Awards, with generous support from George and Angelina Kostas, support research projects to provide high-impact solutions using nanomedicine approaches to diagnose and treat cardiovascular diseases.
• John S. Dunn Foundation Collaborative Research Award, with generous support from the John S. Dunn Foundation, to foster new, exemplary inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional engagement in the quantitative biomedical sciences.
• Dyer Fellowship Award, with generous support from Constance and Byron Dyer, to conduct a pilot research project with focuses on enhancing quality and patient and safety at Houston Methodist.
Translational Research Initiative
This initiative provides two types of awards to support the development of research innovations into inventions that will advance clinical care with generous support from Paula and Rusty Walter & Jim and Carole Looke.
The Bridge to Translational Research Initiative awards support faculty and an advisory board of industry experts to further develop promising ideas of scientific merit and clinical relevance for eventual translation. Ideal projects are highly innovative with the potential to make a significant clinical impact and utilize Houston Methodist intellectual property.
The Translational Research Initiative supports translational and clinically oriented research that will lead to the development of safe and effective clinical interventions and utilize Houston Methodist intellectual property. The size of these awards commensurate with the needs of the project, which must have a regulatory approval plan, detailed milestones and deliverables, and provide periodic progress updates to an external advisory board of industry experts and an internal executive review board.
Cockrell Center for Advanced Therapeutics Clinical Trial Seed Funding Program
The Cockrell Center for Advanced Therapeutics, with generous support from Ann and John W. “Johnny” Johnson, supports faculty with early-phase clinical trials by providing awards to complete funding of partially funded investigator-initiated trials and advance improvements towards approval for clinical use.
Bookout Center Education Training Awards
These awards support faculty in the development of education programs in the following categories:
• Quality and Patient Safety Training: support creation and delivery of courses that advance quality improvement and patient safety.
• Graduate Medical Education (GME) Training: support the creation and delivery of education courses for graduate medical education.
• Interprofessional Team Training: teams from a variety of disciplines focus on an area of training that is a system priority for quality improvement and patient safety.
• National Reputation: creation and delivery of educational courses with a multidisciplinary focus that elevates Houston Methodist’s reputation as a national leading academic medical center for clinical excellence and innovation.
