In this issue.

The subjects of the articles in this issue range from the practical, in the case studies of faculty development programs and strategic planning and a basic primer for those unfamiliar with subcontracting, to the theoretical, in the commentary and research papers concerning ethical considerations of research. The types of institutions represented by the authors include universities, research institutes, government agencies, and a medical college, and the articles will provide interest for a range of readers, from the relatively inexperienced to senior research administrators, for pre-award and to deans and educational coordinators or training personnel.

Certain issues appear to be of wide and enduring interest to research administrators. One of these is how to help new investigators improve their grant writing and increase their rate of success in applying for grants. The three case studies on the topic of faculty development programs in this issue show unique features. The Porter article, "Off the Launching Pad: Stimulating Proposal Development by Junior Faculty," is a case study of a program in which the grants office of Virginia Tech designed special workshops to stimulate more submissions to selected programs by new faculty to help them initiate their research careers. In the Gordin article, "A Development Program for Junior Faculty Submitting National Institutes of Health Grant Applications," the department of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine developed a pre-submission review program of junior faculty NIH applications to improve their success rate and increase the amount of NIH funding to the department. The third paper on this topic, "An Innovative Program for Cultivating Grant Writing Skills in New Faculty Members," is a roundtable discussion by eight members of the faculty of the University of Northern Colorado, Marilyn Banta, Robin Brewer, Arlene Hansen, Heng-Yu Ku, Kimberly Pacheco, Robert Powers, Julie Robinson, and Gardiner Tucker, Fellows of the faculty fellowship program designed by the University's sponsored projects office.

A very practical paper for new research administrators, or in fact any research administrators with little or no experience of subcontracting, is "Subcontracting Primer: The ABCs of Agreements Between Collaborators," by Marie Smith of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies. This commentary describes how lead institutions should administer subcontracts and ensure compliance with Circular A-133 or other circulars for novices in subcontract administration.

Research administrators continue to wrestle with ethical issues of research, and two papers address these issues in specific areas of research. Caines and Gabriele's "Two Roads Converge: The Challenge of Human Subject Protections In the Forensic DNA Research Context" conveys the authors' concerns about complex issues surrounding private and confidentiality in DNA profiling from the federal and state points of view. The second, "Protecting Sex Partners in Partner Notification and Management Studies" by S. Semaan and S.O. Aral of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and A. Klovdahl of Australian National University, explains the ethical principles, especially beneficence, involving sex partners notification and management studies.

The final paper by I. Goodman, "Planning in an Academic Matrix Research Center," is a case study explaining the effectiveness of strategic planning in a complex environment involving research, academic, and patient care at the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center of the University of California, San Diego.