Training and Career Development

ORIP supports training and career development programs specifically for veterinary students and veterinarians. The objective of these programs is to attract highly qualified veterinary students and veterinarians to biomedical and research careers. See our Fact Sheet for an overview of ORIP's Training programs.

Predoctoral training programs support veterinary students for a 1-year immersion in hypothesis-based research in laboratory animal medicine, comparative medicine, or pathology. All research-training activities are conducted on a full-time basis during the student’s year away from clinical instruction and progress toward their veterinary degree.

Another predoctoral program is the summer research program, which provides research-training experiences for veterinary students. ORIP also supports institutionally based postdoctoral training and educational programs that prepare graduate veterinarians for careers in biomedical and translational research.

The Special Emphasis Research Career Award, with 3 to 5 years of “protected time,” supports veterinary scientists early in their careers in obtaining the research expertise necessary to become independent scientists. Graduates from this program have been shown to be more successful in obtaining NIH grants and publishing scientific research papers than those who did not go through the program.