During Phase I of the SRIP program, the emphasis was on establishing the Office of Research Development and increasing the research "culture" at Mercy College. These goals have been partially realized, as the College has been successful at obtaining NIH grants as well as many others. There has been some broad-based training and collaborations with research-intensive institutions. The emphasis of Phase II will be to build on the success of Phase I. The faculty members have identified four barriers to grant development and writing time: time, feedback, special support services and training. This Phase II application includes several strategies for overcoming these barriers, which include greater faculty involvement in feedback, more support from the College and the Office of Research Development for grant writing and special support services for consultation on research design and statistics and more specific grant training workshops. More specific grant training will occur via traditional and on-line means. Another important emphasis will be to increase the number of underrepresented students involved in biomedical and behavioral research at Mercy College. This will be done by recruiting students and including, requirement in EARDA grants that underrepresented student researchers be employed. During Phase II, number of and the breadth of the collaborations will be increased, both across disciplines in the College and between Mercy College and research-intensive institutions. Finally, a capability database will be constructed for Mercy College faculty and staff. The combination of the Phase I and phase II EARDA programs will make the Office of Research Development a self sustaining office at the end of Phase