In 1991, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) established the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program to produce the next generation of creative thinkers and problem solvers in health policy by attracting talented recent graduates of doctoral programs in economics, political science and sociology to the field of health policy research.

Under the program, recent graduates of doctoral programs in the three disciplines spend two years at one of three leading universities: Harvard University, University of California at Berkeley/San Francisco and University of Michigan. The program selects a cohort of up to 12 Scholars each year, placing four at each university.

Alan B. Cohen, Sc.D., executive director of the Boston University Health Policy Institute, Boston, is the national program director.

Key Results
As of December 2008:

• Some 179 Scholars had been accepted into the program in the first 15 cohorts: 58 economists, 62 political scientists and 59 sociologists.
• Some 129 of the 153 Scholars who had completed their fellowships by 2008 held academic appointments at universities. Of the 81 tenure-eligible Scholars (i.e., had been out of graduate school for at least seven years to be considered for tenure), 63 had been promoted to associate professor with tenure, with 16 of these subsequently becoming full professors.

Key Findings
RWJF commissioned two internal and two external evaluations of the program.

In 2004 and again in 2008 the national program office at the Boston University Health Policy Institute conducted a self-evaluation of the program. Findings from the 2008 self-evaluation include:

• Some 90 percent of Scholars recruited in 2005 or later came from the top 25 departments in their disciplines, compared with 71 percent recruited between 1994 and 1996.
• Program alumni have influenced health policy thinking in the health field and within the disciplines of economics, political science and sociology. They have held 101 editorial affiliations with 69 different journals. Some 25 alumni have sat on scientific advisory panels convened by public or quasi-public organizations.
• The program has improved the job opportunities available to Scholars after their participation in the program.
• The program has encouraged Scholar placement in academic positions where alumni can maintain ties to their home disciplines.
• The program has increased minority representation among Scholars. The percentage of minority Scholars recruited annually in 2005 or later has ranged between 31 and 42.
• Alumni have been productive with post-program publications and research, contributing almost 600 articles to peer-reviewed journals in health policy or health-related publications.
• Alumni have successfully pursued and secured research funding from both public and private sources.

In 1997, researchers at Northwestern University evaluated the program and in 2001, researchers at Syracuse University conducted a second evaluation. See Appendix 1 for findings.

See the Project List to be linked to reports on the active sites.

This report also includes profiles of 13 Scholars (for a link to each profile, go to Profiles.

Funding
The RWJF Board of Trustees authorized the program in 1991 (RWJF, funded the first four cohorts of Scholars in 1993) and the Trustees renewed the program in 1997, 2001 and 2005 and 2009; authorizations total up to $74.283 million.