The National Research Council’s Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs Can Be Used to Strengthen Doctoral Programs in Nutrition

The National Research Council (NRC) is for the first time including the field of nutrition in its Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs in 2006. This assessment will rate doctoral programs, in terms of research impact and graduate student support and outcomes, through the use of questionnaires and standardized national databases (such as research funding, publications, and citations of publications) rather than through name recognition as was used in past NRC surveys of graduate programs. Nutritionists can make this survey more valuable to the field by making sure all eligible faculty involved in training of graduate students in nutrition are included in the survey, by encouraging all eligible faculty members to complete the faculty questionnaire, and by being prepared to use and discuss the data and reports when they are released in 2007. The nutrition community should use the data from this national survey to strengthen doctoral programs and research in nutrition.