Enhancing Dissemination and Career Development via the APA Annual Convention

7. Project Summary This is a proposal for a fifth renewal of travel grant R13AA017107. For the last 12 years, this grant has provided funding to support scientific dissemination and early career investigator (ECI) career development at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association (APA). Psychologists make up a major constituency in the scientific community of alcohol researchers and on topics related to alcohol. The APA is the largest organization of psychologists and their trainees in the US, and its annual convention attracts thousands of attendees. In particular, APA Divisions 50 (Society for Addiction Psychology) and 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse) are heavily populated with alcohol researchers, with further alcohol researchers in Divisions 38 (Health Psychology), 5 (Quantitative and Qualitative Methods) and 25 (Behavior Analysis), many of whom are recipients of NIAAA funding. This R13 grant represents a collaboration between Division 50 (primary) and Divisions 28, 38, 5, and 25 (partnering divisions) to achieve two goals: (1) to foster the development of the next generation of alcohol researchers from the psychological community, and (2) to disseminate state-of-the-art alcohol research to the psychological community. The first goal will be achieved by providing 20 travel awards to ECIs (i.e., graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty) and showcasing their research at a special ECI poster session/social hour. In addition, the R13 will support a career development symposium each year. The second goal will be achieved by coordinating an alcohol research science symposium on a topic that is at the same time a current NIAAA priority and of clear relevance to psychologists. In addition, to further support dissemination, we will put together and widely disseminate an Alcohol Research Highlights brochure that summarizes substance use and addiction programming across divisions at the annual convention of the APA, and will highlight R13-supported events as they happen on social media (e.g., Twitter). For both aims, the R13 will reach out to women and underrepresented minorities to maximize inclusion. To date, this R13 grant has been highly successful in nurturing the careers of early career alcohol researchers and disseminating advances in alcohol research. The goal for the next segment is to sustain these contributions to the field.