CODE OF CONDUCT

As a non-profit charitable organization, HHMI is committed to conducting its activities in accordance with the highest standards of integrity and ethics.
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RESEARCH POLICIES

Scientific research carried out by HHMI scientists is governed by policies that address the conduct of research, the sharing of data and materials, collaborations, and intellectual property.
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Discovering New Knowledge

We live in an era of discovery. Each day, scientists bring us closer to understanding fundamental questions about human life. How does the brain process information and store knowledge? How do mutations in key genes cause disease? How do cells communicate? The challenge of solving these and other questions—as well as the promise of what those answers might yield—drives the quest for knowledge at the heart of our work at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

HHMI, a nonprofit medical research organization that ranks as one of the nation’s largest philanthropies, plays a powerful role in advancing biomedical research and science education in the United States. The Institute spent $825 million for research and distributed $80 million in grant support for science education in fiscal year 2011.

HHMI Investigators
HHMI’s flagship program in biomedical research rests on the conviction that scientists of exceptional talent, commitment, and imagination will make fundamental biological discoveries for the betterment of human health if they receive the resources, time, and freedom to pursue challenging questions. Approximately 330 investigators, selected through rigorous national competitions, currently include 13 Nobel Prize winners and 147 members of the National Academy of Sciences. Hughes laboratories, found at 72 U.S. universities, research institutes, medical schools, and affiliated hospitals, employ nearly 700 postdocs and provide training opportunities for more than 1,000 graduate students each year.

Collaborative Innovation Awards
Launched in 2008, this four-year pilot program enables selected Hughes investigators to join with scientists outside HHMI to undertake projects that are new and so large in scope that they require a team covering a range of fields. Eight projects support research by 33 scientists from 15 institutions in the United States and 1 in Chile.

Early Career Scientists
In 2009, HHMI identified 50 of the nation’s most promising scientists to receive support at a critical early stage of their careers. HHMI funding over a six-year appointment provides them with the freedom to pursue their boldest research ideas without having to worry about obtaining grants to fund those experiments.

Grants for Science Education
The HHMI grants program fuses teaching and research, reflecting the Institute’s commitment to inspiring and educating a new generation of scientists. HHMI funds initiatives with the power to transform undergraduate and graduate education by engaging students in discovery research. We seek opportunities to create connections across a continuum of learning that extends from the primary grades through high school and beyond and includes activities to increase diversity in the scientific workforce and promote scientific literacy in society. The Cool Science portal on hhmi.org features innovative resources—produced by HHMI and its grantees—that are changing the way science is taught. HHMI also supports highly creative international scientists in diverse geographic regions and research areas and invests in resources that benefit the broader scientific community.

HHMI-GBMF Investigators
The HHMI-GBMF investigators—some of the nation's most innovative plant scientists—are conducting research on a variety of plants, such as wheat, maize, tomato, Arabidopsis, moss, and algae.

International TB/HIV Initiative
In 2009, a groundbreaking partnership was formed between HHMI and the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, to establish an international research center. The KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) will focus on making major scientific contributions to the worldwide effort to control the devastating coepidemic of tuberculosis and HIV and on training a new cadre of scientists in Africa.

International Early Career Scientist Program
This new pilot program has launched a competition to select up to 35 early career scientists working outside the United States with the goal of helping these talented individuals establish independent research programs. The competition is open to scientists who have trained in the United States, run their own labs for less than seven years, and work in one of 18 eligible countries. Those countries are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and Turkey.

Janelia Farm Research Campus
The Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, which opened in 2006, further extends HHMI’s commitment to research and discovery. Resident and visiting scientists at Janelia Farm are probing fundamental biomedical questions best addressed through a collaborative, interdisciplinary culture. The initial research focus is identification of general principles that govern how information is processed by neuronal circuits and development of imaging technologies and computational methods for image analysis. Researchers at Janelia Farm—including the most senior group leaders—engage in active bench science and work in small teams that cross disciplinary boundaries to bring chemists, physicists, computational scientists, and engineers into close collaboration with biologists. Janelia Farm also hosts a program of specialized conferences intended to encourage rapid advances and scientific collaborations.

Founded in 1953 by aviator and industrialist Howard R. Hughes, HHMI is headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and employs more than 3,000 individuals across the United States. It has an endowment of $16.1 billion.

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