UConn’s School of Nursing is one of only 28 nationwide to receive a grant to increase the number of nurses with doctorates.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Future of Nursing Scholars program will provide financial support, mentoring, and leadership development to nurses who commit to earn their doctorates in three years.

“These nurses will complete their doctorates in three years, a much quicker progression than is typically seen in nursing PhD programs,” said Julie Fairman, Future of Nursing Scholars program co-director and the Nightingale professor of nursing and the chair of the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

In addition to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, Northwell Health, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Sharp HealthCare, Rush University Medical Center, Care Institute Group, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are supporting the Future of Nursing Scholars grants this year.

This is the second time UConn has received the scholarship funding; two scholars are currently enrolled. UConn will select additional scholars in April and those students will begin the program this summer and doctoral studies in the fall.

In its landmark nursing report, the National Institute of Medicine recommended that the country double the number of nurses with doctorates. Doing so will prepare and enable nurses to lead change to advance health, promote nurse-led science and discovery, and put more educators in place to prepare the next generation of nurses, according to the report.

The 51 nurses supported through the new funding will join 109 scholars across the three previous cohorts.