WARWICK – The Community College of Rhode Island says it is now part of the IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence, a collection of state colleges granted $20 million to provide students and faculty members access to opportunities in research.
INBRE is a federally funded effort among partner institutions that selects qualified undergraduates to pursue original biomedical research within multiple academic laboratories.
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The University of Rhode Island originally applied for the INBRE grant five years ago as the state’s lead institution and reapplied this past year with CCRI added for the first time as one of the seven partner institutions, a list that also includes Brown University, Bryant University, Providence College, Rhode Island College, Roger Williams University and Salve Regina University.
CCRI Biology Department Chair Christine Turenius-Bell said in a news release the partnership serves two purposes: It will encourage students to participate in research projects, and it will promote faculty development.
As a partner institution, CCRI can send students interested in participating in research projects to any of the partner institutions to work with experts in the field as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, all of which is funded through the grant.
Faculty can also work with fellow research professionals at any of the partner institutions by either bringing their classes to another facility to observe research methods, or brainstorming with colleagues to update and improve their own curriculum.
“Our role is to create a pool of candidates to filter them out to those four-year universities,” Turenius-Bell said. “What we’ve found is undergraduates are all too often transferring to four-year colleges without the necessary tools to become juniors who understand research methods or research techniques. The students who have been through the [Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship] program are head and shoulders above others who have not gone through it, including students who are coming from the other partner institutions.
“The faculty bringing new information to our students are elevating the quality of our courses,” she added. “We need to stay ahead of the curve with what is going on in the industry and in research. We need to keep our students up to date.”
CCRI’s first INBRE cohort begins in summer 2020. To qualify for the fellowship program, students must first identify a research mentor at a partner institution and communicate with them directly to pitch an idea for a project. Research proposals are submitted to the INBRE steering committee, which then makes the final approval. Students and research mentors also receive a stipend.
An additional benefit for CCRI is the operator-assisted access to equipment. Faculty can bring students to another lab to work with state-of-the-art equipment or potentially acquire equipment no longer being used at one of the partner institutions.
