Each team member must:
- Be five years or more post-training and licensure in his or her chosen health profession.
- Possess community-focused research or program experience.
- Be at least 21 years old as of September 1, 2019.
- Be a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or individual granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the time of application.
- Currently work in one of the following capacities: Provider seeing patients/clients in a clinical, community, or school-based setting; Instructor/Faculty teaching trainees or students; Supervisor of providers seeing patients/clients; or Administrator with systems-level leadership role in the direction of patient care (e.g., nurse administrators)
- Who are NOT: Federal, state, tribal and local government employees who are considered government officials under Section 4946 of the Internal Revenue Code; or Related by blood or marriage to any Officer or Trustee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, or be a descendant of its founder, Robert Wood Johnson.
Each team must:
- Be sponsored by an applicant organization.
- Consist of three to five licensed professionals (who all meet the individual requirements above) representing two or more disciplines (e.g., a team with a dentist, social worker, and nurse).
- Have at least one team member who has a terminal degree for practice in his or her health-related field.
Teams may consist of members from within the same or across different organizations. Teams may have a history of working together or be newly formed.
The applicant organization sponsoring the team must:
- Be based in the United States or its territories.
- Have the administrative and financial capacity, as well as the experience, to accept the award and to be able to distribute funds consistent with the permitted use of funds described herein, and within the approved budget. This includes having proper governance, sufficient staffing, and strong financial policies, procedures, and internal controls.
- Not include indirect costs more than 12 percent. RWJF encourages applicant organizations to waive indirect costs, but 12 percent is the maximum an organization can include.
There is no limit on the number of applications submitted and selected from an organization.
All Clinical Scholars fellows are required for the three years of the program to:
- Attend all of the onsite intensives (approximately 14 days per year)
- Participate in the ongoing distance learning (approximately 2-3 hours per week)
- Commit to the time they propose for their Wicked Problem Impact Project
The time spent on the ongoing distance learning includes live webinars (archived for later viewing too), accessing just-in-time leadership modules, Executive coaching calls, Team coaching calls, pre-work for onsites, and completing program deliverables (annual reports, poster presentation, webinar on their project, Wicked Problem Impact Project Toolkit, and TED-like Talk).
Grant funding is awarded based on team size—ranging from up to $210,000 for a two-person team to a maximum of $525,000 for a five-person team—for all three years.
Grant funds can be used to support the ongoing participation of all team members, including salary support, project funding, and project travel. While the grant funding is awarded based on the number of Clinical Scholars fellows on a team, the funding can be used to support other individuals or organizations working on the team’s Wicked Problem Impact Project.
Yes. Alumni and current scholars of the previous RWJF Clinical Scholars Program (1972 – 2016) are eligible for this program. The new Clinical Scholars program differs in that it is not a residency/research training program for students, but a leadership development program for experienced professionals who are at least five years into their careers.
