African-Americans currently hold fewer than 3.2 percent of PhDs in biological sciences and chemistry. To help address this imbalance, Merck joined with the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) in 1995 to establish the UNCF/Merck Science Initiative. This ground-breaking program seeks to expand the pool of world-class African-American biomedical scientists and, so doing, to enhance economic competitiveness in the United States. The initiative also provides Merck with an opportunity to recruit from a more diverse pool of post-doctoral fellows in support of the Company's diversity workforce goals, and supports one of Merck's five strategic philanthropic priorities.

The content on this page was last modified on September 15, 2009.

Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA, and Schering-Plough Corporation, Kenilworth, NJ, USA, are now one company. We have combined our global operations under the name Merck & Co., Inc. We are working to update our corporate responsibility Web site to reflect our new, combined, global organization.