Summer Research Institute (SRI)

SRI Website

The SRI is a novel concept in geriatric psychiatry research training. Dr. Jeste is the PI of this NIMH-funded R25 grant. Maureen Halpain, Manager of the Division is also the Manager and Co-PI for the SRI.

This one-week-long training experience focuses on the tools needed to begin, maintain and succeed on an academic career path in geriatric psychiatry. The one-week SRI provides training to about 25-30 selected fellows or junior faculty from across the country each year. So far seven annual SRI’s have been held at 6 different universities.

The SRI is followed by ongoing communication with and mentoring of the trainees by their respective mentors. The goals of the SRI include: increasing the number of talented individuals in the pipeline of developing investigators in geriatric psychiatry; and, broadening the base of geriatric psychiatry research by making research careers more accessible to clinical trainees and junior faculty members from institutions that do not currently have active programs of research in this field.

The SRI is also intended to increase knowledge of what research involves; to provide information regarding current methods and issues in geriatric psychiatry research; and to foster relationships between junior investigators and their peers and mentors. We have two peer-reviewed publications describing the methods and results of the SRI (Halpain, Jeste et al., 1997 and 2001.).

 About 90% of the attendees have presented and written publishable papers within a year of attendance while over 50% have received grant funding within 18 months of the SRI. The three-year cumulative proportion “surviving” in full-time academics is 78%.

The SRI offers a novel and successful model for training junior investigators in a manner that is useful both to them and to the field as a whole. This model is being used for developing similar training programs in various other areas including health services research, suicide prevention and management, research in women, etc. The SRI grant was renewed for 5 years in 2000 with a priority score of 101 (0 percentile).

SRI Website