The Development Core has, as its primary mission, the development and promotion of population research at the university in line with our four PRAs: Gender, Family and Social Change, Health in Social Context, Social and Economic Inequality, and Migrant and Immigrant Processes. The Core's mission is accomplished through: 1) promoting inter-disciplinary engagement in population research through seminars, workshops and other collaborative opportunities including with the Federal statistics agencies and larger Washington DC community; 2) supporting our faculty, in particular junior and URM faculty, to develop and expand their research agenda in the population sciences through Seed Grants; 3) hosting resident and visiting population scientists in order to support and expand collaborative opportunities for MPRC faculty associates; 4) fostering the careers of underrepresented scholars in population research in order to foster balanced and broadened perspectives in setting population research priorities; and 5) co-sponsoring symposia and workshops on a range of population related issues in order to increase our visibility at UMD and strengthen our interdisciplinary mission. The seminar series and workshops offer an invaluable opportunity for the UMD community to engage with population researchers at other universities in the US and beyond. The Seed Grant program is critical to supporting the development of proposals for submission to NIH/PDB, other federal agencies and foundations. The resident and visiting researcher programs are critical to increasing the visibility of MPRC nationally, internationally and to the greater Washington DC community. The DC’s programs to support URM scholars addresses the call by NICHD/PDB and other federal funding agencies to increase the visibility of URM researchers in population research. Co-sponsoring symposia is a highly effective and cost efficient way to interact with other entities at UMD to elevate the role of MPRC in promoting population research at UMD. Contact PD/PI: Rendall, Michael Development-Core-001 (901) Project Summary/