To: Search Committee Members

From: Michael M. Gottesman, M.D., Deputy Director for Intramural Research

RE: Your Role as Search Committee Members

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to hiring new intramural scientists of the highest caliber and maximum diversity. To the NIH, diversity covers everything: race, gender, disability, etc. We appreciate your assistance in helping achieve these paired goals during this recruitment. We are certain that your selection to this Search Committee reflects your expertise and commitment to bring excellence to NIH, and we are providing the following information so that you are prepared to assist us in reaching our goal of a diverse research staff.

We depend on each Committee member to help us cast the widest possible net to bring qualified candidates from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and expect each to play a very active role in searching for candidates by networking with your colleagues and through your professional societies. These organizations will have vacancy listings, minority affairs groups, list services, resource programs, etc. Please provide your professional organizations with information about this vacancy. You should also be contacting colleagues at the NIH and at other institutions to make them aware of this search and to encourage them to apply or to recommend qualified applicants.

To avoid the appearance of bias, committee members must refrain from writing letters of recommendation for candidates. If you write a letter, you will have to resign from the search committee.

Although most Search Committees have a member from an underrepresented minority group and all have at least one woman scientist, the task of identifying qualified minority and women candidates should not rest solely with them. These members may however provide perspectives on various candidates (for example, the quality of their educational institutions) that may not be known to all Committee members. My office sends monthly updates of tenured and tenure-track openings to the organizations indicated below. The committee may also wish to consider placing paid ads at some of the other special emphasis websites, magazines or newsletters targeted to underrepresented minorities and women, which are also listed below. Relevant NIH Scientific Interest Groups, should also be notified. Each committee also has an OEODM representative as an ex-officio member and that person will advise on the need for targeted recruitment and share information if there are individuals from underrepresented groups (as recognized by OEODM) among the applicant pool. The EEO Specialist will share the vacancy through the NIH Special Emphasis Program Manager networks and affiliations and recommend targeted resources for posting vacancies as well, to help expand the applicant pool. Ensuring that every qualified individual knows about the position may mean that some people are contacted by multiple routes. That is acceptable, and may also reinforce the fact that the search process is open.

The Scientific Director of the relevant Institute, and someone from my office, will meet with the whole Committee to discuss your roles, responsibilities, procedures and guidelines. Before or at this meeting, the IC will provide you with the DDIR-approved advertisement to get your input on it. After Committee agreement on the final advertisement, the IC will consult with and notify you where it has placed advertisements. These advertisements should be placed 60 days prior to any screening of applicants. It is the responsibility of the whole Committee to insure that all of these rules are followed so that all relevant candidates know of the opening, have adequate time, and are encouraged to apply.

I appreciate your willingness to take on this important responsibility for the NIH Intramural Research Program.

Groups that automatically receive notices of NIH Tenure-Track/Tenured Positions (as of Spring/Summer 2008)

Association for Women in Science (Bethesda Chapter):

Biomedical Science Careers Program (Harvard Medical School)

Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP Opportunities E-Newsletter)

NIH Black Scientists Listserver

The NIH Women Scientist Advisors

The NIH Hispanic Employee Organization

The NIH-FDA Chinese-American Association

Meyerhoff Scholarship Program (University of Maryland Baltimore County)

Program Directors and PIs for NCRR's Research Centers in Minority Institutions

National Hispanic Scientists Network for Drug abuse

The Leadership Alliance (Brown University)

The NIH Asian/ Pacific Islander -American Organization

Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America

Salk Institute Society of Research Fellows

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Postdoc Association

Paid Advertisers that Target Women and Minorities