Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #113178

Ellen Backman Kent, MPH, University of South Florida College of Public Health, 12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. MDC76, Tampa, FL 33612, 813--974-6622, ekent@hsc.usf.edu

For the past six years, since 1999, University of South Florida's College of Public Health (COPH) has offered a variety of incentive programs to promote student research. Degree-seeking COPH students may apply for internal “Student Research Scholarships” (SRS) to support their own MPH MSPH, and PhD research projects. COPH students may also apply each month for the “Student Honorary Award for Research and Practice” (SHARP) awards that support their costs of presenting their research at local, regional, national and international conferences. Each year, the COPH sets aside a budget of $10,000 for these awards and over 100 COPH students have already received these two internal awards. For both awards, the COPH students must follow comprehensive written guidelines, which are modeled after federal and private research grants. In addition, COPH students whose papers are judged to be acceptable for submission to national ASPH and HRSA competitions also receive cash awards. Moreover, COPH students are encouraged to participate in annual research poster competitions sponsored by the HSC and the university. These research incentive programs are administered by the COPH's Coordinator for Student Research Grants, in collaboration with teams of COPH faculty reviewers. To promote the various awards, the Coordinator relies upon email, verbal communication, poster boards and verbal presentations to student organizations. Numerous students and faculty have commented upon the scholarly value of these internal student research incentive programs, which challenge students to independently prepare their own comprehensive research grant proposals, conduct and present their own research, and follow grant reporting requirements.

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