NSF announces new Merit Review criteria

Based on a review of their processes by the National Science Board, the NSF will be adopting revised Merit Review criteria for all proposals submitted on or after January 14, 2013. The full review procedure is here; a Powerpoint-style overview can be found here.

A reason to become an NSF reviewer!

Washington, DC-based Sunlight Foundation used open data on the National Science Foundation to find a "clear correlation between the universities with the most employees serving on the NSF advisory committees and the universities that receive the most federal money." They caution that this is merely correlative data, and they don't know that it's causative, but "even when controlling for other factors, we find that for each additional employee a university has serving on an NSF advisory committee that university can expect to see an additional $125,000 to $138,000 in NSF funding."

Seems like more than a coincidence?

You can read the whole article on their blog.

New Financial Conflict of Interest Policy

Effective August 24th, 2012, the Public Health Service (which funds a number of Fordham faculty members) has adopted a new financial conflict of interest in research policy. As required, Fordham has created its own policy based on the federal regulations and posted it on the OSP website. Please review the policy and direct any questions to Kris Wolff, Manager of OSP at x4086. Thank you!

NIH gets $100mil raise for 2013

While not a lot of money, it's better than nothing - yesterday a Senate panel voted to increase the NIH's 2013 budget by $100,000,000 as part of a broader spending bill. More information is here at the Science Insider.

Petition: to require free access to taxpayer-funded research articles

We the People on Whitehouse.gov currently has almost 9,000 signatures for a petition to "require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research". Apparently people don't want to pay to read about research projects funded by their own money! Makes some sense, but may be a bit too simplistic. If you'd like to read the full text and decide whether to sign the petition, click here.

Grad students petition Congress for more research $

Yesterday, MIT students presented Congress with a petition asking for more "indispensable investments in science and engineering research". The petition currently has more than 10,300 signatures; you can add yours here.

More information about the petition, and the Stand with Science project:

How to Write Like a Scientist

Some not at all helpful tips for writing your scientific articles can be found here (but they are funny!).

NIDA weighs in on tobacco industry funding

The National Institute of Drug Abuse has published "Points to Consider Regarding Tobacco Industry Funding of NIDA Applicants" on its website. This document cautions NIDA grantees from accepting research funding from the tobacco industry because it could: "compromise the perceived objectivity of their research results and affect the overall credibility of their research findings; be viewed as contributing to tobacco industry interests; and negatively impact NIDA’s credibility and the public trust in NIDA-funded research."

The full document can be found at this link.

What does a scientist look like?

Check out this collection of scientists' photos, you might be surprised.

One scientist speaks out against NIH financial cuts

Kerri Mowen of the Scripps Research Institute has submitted seven proposals to the NIH in the past year and so far has not gotten funding for any of them. She spoke to the San Diego Union-Tribune about her belief that the NIH should be immune to budget cuts.