personnel such as graduate students, postdoctoral 
associates, and technicians. In addition, in recogni- 
tion of the importance of the intellectual environ- 
ment in which scholars conduct their research and 
the limited resources available in some circum- 
stances, a portion of the awards in Mexico provide 
departmental shared resources that will enrich the 
general scientific environment. A listing of the scien- 
tists selected through this program appears in the 
introduction to this volume. 
The International Research Scholars, among the 
foremost contributors to their fields, have partici- 
pated with Institute investigators in the scientific 
meetings of the Institute. A summary of their grant- 
supported research is published each year in the In- 
stitute's annual Research in Progress and Annual 
Scientific Report and appears within this volume. 
PROGRAM ASSESSMENT 
Assessment within the grants program has two 
principal objectives: 1) to document and measure 
key outcomes of the Institute's various grants initia- 
tives and 2) to assist the development of new initia- 
tives through studies of national trends in areas such 
as science education, the national research enter- 
prise, and public and private support for science. 
The Institute's assessment program has focused 
initially on outcomes for the grants initiatives in 
graduate and undergraduate science education, 
largely through analysis of annual progress reports 
submitted by individual fellows and institutional 
grant recipients. Data from the reports are presented 
in Grants for Science Education, 1992-1995- As- 
sessment programs are currently under develop- 
ment for several initiatives in the precollege educa- 
tion area. 
In addition, several studies of national trends and 
conditions relevant to grants program planning and 
evaluation are under way or have been completed. 
In conjunction with these internal activities, the In- 
stitute is working with several federal agencies and 
private organizations to draw on existing national 
databases and to develop new ones. These will be 
used for long-term monitoring of the careers of Insti- 
tute-supported fellows, the records of colleges and 
universities in graduating students who pursue ca- 
reers in science and medicine, and analyses of other 
national trends relevant to support of scientific edu- 
cation and research. 
One current project involving both assessment of 
an Institute fellowship program and studies at the 
national level concerns the education and career 
outcomes of physician-scientists. In order to mea- 
sure the impact of Institute-sponsored programs for 
medical students and to gain a better understand- 
ing of the factors affecting career outcomes of 
physician-scientists, the Institute awarded a five- 
year grant to the Association of American Medical 
Colleges (AAMC) in 1989. The grant enables the 
AAMC to use existing national databases to track the 
educational progress and long-term careers of the 
Institute's fellows and scholars. 
The project also tracks a number of other groups 
of M.D. graduates, for comparison with the Insti- 
tute's fellow and scholar study groups. This project 
monitors annually a variety of educational and ca- 
reer outcomes for each group, beginning the year 
the M.D. is awarded, and will continue through 
some point beyond mid-career. This long-term 
tracking is designed to focus on involvement in re- 
search over time and at different career stages. 
In addition to the primary objective of long-term 
tracking of the Institute's fellows and scholars, the 
AAMC study provides annual information on the na- 
tional supply, demographic characteristics, and edu- 
cational patterns of M.D. /Ph.D. 's. Findings from this 
project, including data on annual enrollments in 
dual degree programs/numbers of earned doctor- 
ates among recent M.D.'s, the sequence and timing 
of the M.D. and Ph.D. degrees, and patterns of total 
educational indebtedness among recent medical 
school graduates, are presented in the annual vol- 
umes of Grants for Science Education. 
Another national-level assessment project is an 
analysis of the undergraduate origins of recent ma- 
triculants to medical school and recent recipients of 
doctoral degrees in selected sciences, including the 
biological sciences. This study is based on data de- 
veloped for the Institute's undergraduate science ed- 
ucation program in order to evaluate colleges and 
universities for participation in the undergraduate 
grant competitions. The data examine the records 
for each of 1 ,4 1 3 universities and four-year colleges 
concerning undergraduate alumni having gone on 
recently to matriculate in medical school or to earn 
doctoral degrees in the sciences and mathematics. 
The study period is 1979 through 1 988, with analy- 
ses of the absolute number and the proportion of 
baccalaureate graduates having gone on to these 
outcomes. Data for this study were provided by the 
Association of American Medical Colleges, the Na- 
tional Research Council of the National Academy of 
Sciences, and the U.S. Department of Education. A 
summary of these findings will be presented in 
Grants for Science Education, 1992-1993- 
GRANTS AND SPECIAL PROGRAMS 559 
