2017 NSF Fall Grants Conference webcasts available

The NSF Grants Conferences are always popular events that can't accommodate everyone that wants to attend; thankfully they've posted the videos from the conference proceedings so everyone has a chance to learn. Visit the NSF Resource Center to view the videos.

Big Data training and symposium

The Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) and Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) programs, both initiatives of the NIH Common Fund, announce their 2018 Summer Research Training Program in Biomedical Big Data Science. This is a research intensive, ten-week training for undergraduate and graduate students starting June 4, 2018. Applications are due on February 1st. For more information on how to apply, and to see past training fellows and their research projects, see the Training and Outreach page of the BD2K-LINCS website.

BD2K-LINCS also announces the 2018 Data Science Symposium, January 31-February 2, 2018, in sunny Miami, Florida. This year's topic is "Studying Systems Biology by Cellular Perturbations". For more information on the symposium, see their News and Events page.

Distinguished Lectures in Mathematical and Physical Sciences

The National Science Foundation announces the 2017-2018 Distinguished Lectures in Mathematical and Physical Sciences, a series of free lectures at the NSF Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. If you are going to be in the area, all you need to do is send an email to arrange for a visitor badge at least 24 hours prior to the lecture you wish to attend. The schedule is:

•Monday, Dec. 11, 2017: Soft Materials Research in the Era of Machine Learning, Juan de Pablo, professor of molecular engineering, University of Chicago.

•Monday, Jan. 22, 2018: Turning Inert Nitrogen from the Atmosphere into Useful Products through Mild Catalytic Chemistry, Nobel laureate Richard Schrock, professor of chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

•Monday, Feb. 12, 2018: Strange Bonds and Odd Angles: Exploring Exotic Chemistry in Space, Michael McCarthy, associate director, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

•Monday, April 23, 2018: Modeling and Simulation of Asteroid-Generated Tsunamis, Marsha Berger, professor of mathematics and computer science, New York University.

•Monday, May 21, 2018: Hairy Hydrodynamics in Biology and Beyond, Anette (Peko) Hosoi, professor of mechanical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

•Monday, June 25, 2018: Atomic Clocks in the Next Quantum Revolution, Marianna Safronova, professor of physics, University of Delaware.

For more information, please see NSF's Media Advisory 17-012.

NIH regional seminar on program funding and grants

NIH announces Early Registration rates for a May 2018 regional seminar on program funding and grants administration for researchers or administrators who want to learn more about NIH, talk to colleagues from the area, and speak with NIH personnel. The two-day seminar will be held May 2nd to 4th, at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, Washington DC. Registration is open now and early bird rates are available until December 15th. There are also full and half-day workshops available.

Act FAST! NIH regional seminars sell out very quickly.

Should scientific presentations use emojis?

Last November, a team of scientists attended Emojicon in San Francisco and demanded that the Unicode Consortium approve a new set of scientific emojis that would better help them express themselves quickly. (See: Scientists call for emoji that represent the full spectrum of nerdom, Quartz, November 14, 2016.)

Now, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, after meeting with conference organizers to discuss efforts to increase transparency in the communication of scientific results, has released a Request for Information on developing emojis for scientific presentations such as conference posters. Use of an accepted emoji indicating, for example, randomized trials or a double-blind protocol, would allow someone viewing a poster to quickly assess the research method's rigor.

Responses are requested by December 15th. See NOT-NS-18-014, "Request for Information on Developing Experimental Design "Emoji" Symbols for Use in Scientific Presentations" for more information.

scientist emoji via Wikimedia Commons

NEH announces collaborative research grants

The NEH announces three types of collaborative research grants, for a proposal deadline of December 6, 2017. Each grant type supports groups of two or more scholars engaging in significant and sustained research in the humanities, and seeks to encourage interdisciplinary work. The three available grants are:

Type 1: Convening Grants – up to $50,000
Convening grants last one year and typically fund conferences and working group meetings to sharpen the chosen research topic and discuss and plan subsequent publication.

Type 2: Publication Grants – up to $250,000 (no more than $100,000 per year)
Publication grants last one to three years and support the project toward completion of its publication goals. Publications can appear in traditional print or in digital form. Note that costs paid to publishers and subventions are not supported.

Type 3: Archaeology Grants – up to $250,000 (no more than $100,000 per year)
Archaeology grants last one to three years and support projects that lead to publication.

Please see the Collaborative Research Grants page for more information.

Open House at CUNY's Advance Science Research Center

The City University of New York announces its second annual ASRC Open House on Thursday, November 16th from 10am to 7pm. Guests will be able to tour 10 active core facilities, talk to research faculty, and have the opportunity to become a core facility user or affiliate faculty member with access to the Center. Research Initiatives of the ASRC include photonics, nanoscience, structural biology, neuroscience and environmental sciences. To register for the tour, and get more information about the ASRC, visit this link: http://www.asrc.cuny.edu/events/open-house-2017/.

NSF wants to know what research infrastructure you need

In Dear Colleague Letter 18-013 NSF has issued a request for information about the need for Mid-scale Research Infrastructure. "Mid-scale" is defined as costs falling between the maximum you can request from their popular Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program, which is $4M, and the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act's definition of a 'major multi-user research facility project', which is $100M or greater. This request for information is not a request for funding, nor should the request be interpreted as an intent to publish a new research infrastructure opportunity in the near future, but it will help the NSF identify "promising projects that remain difficult to address within program budgets due to the comparatively large investment needed in a relatively short period of time." A link to the survey can be found at the bottom of the Dear Colleague Letter linked above. It doesn't hurt to let the NSF know what the community needs!

Four NSF BIO divisions do away with pre-proposals (and deadlines!)

NSF announced on October 5th in Dear Colleague Letter 18-011 that after careful consideration of the impact of the pre-proposal pilot on reviewers, institutions and the research community, "BIO will implement a 'no-deadline,' full-proposal mechanism for receiving and reviewing proposals submitted to core programs in the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB), the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS), the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB), and to the programs in the Research Resources Cluster of the Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI)." More information on the changes to proposals can be found in these FAQ's (NSF 18-012) as well as on the division's websites.

NIH's Loan Repayment Program -- webinar coming up soon!

Interested in the NIH's Loan Repayment Program (see previous blog post here) but having some trouble figuring out how to apply? Register for the LRP Technical Assistance webinar at this link: NIH LRP Webinar.

Webinar Info:
Date and Time: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 3:00 pm, EST
Meeting number (access code): 620 964 208
Event password: LRPApp
Call-in toll-free number (US/Canada): 1-650-479-3208

Agenda:
1. Description of the Programs and Eligibility Requirements
2. Overview of Application Components
- Major Sections of the Application
- Research Activities and Personal Statement
- Recommendations
- Loan Information
3. Application Timeline
4. Applicant Checklist
5. Q&A

NIH's Next Generation Researchers initiative

As of August 31, 2017, the National Institutes of Health has implemented new procedures to better support early stage and early established investigators called the Next Generation Researchers Initiative. Early state investigators (ESI) are those who are within 10 years of their terminal research degree or the end of their post-graduate clinical training, who have not received a "substantial" NIH award yet. (For a list of smaller NIH grants that an investigator can hold, and still be considered early stage, click here.) An early established investigator (EEI) is within 10 years of receiving their first substantial NIH award as an early stage investigator. Both classes of investigator will be given priority, and NIH's goal is to award 200 more ESI and 200 more EEI awards this fiscal year than last year. Learn more about this initiative here: NOT-OD-17-101.

NIH Loan Repayment Program

The NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) are a set of programs established by Congress, designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or biobehavioral research careers. The escalating costs of advanced education and training in medicine and clinical specialties are forcing some scientists to abandon their research careers for higher-paying private industry or private practice careers.

The LRPs counteract that financial pressure by repaying up to $35,000 annually of a researcher's qualified educational debt in return for a commitment to engage in NIH mission-relevant research. Awardees can receive up to $70,000 of qualified educational debt repayment with a two-year contract. This year's application cycle opens on Friday, September 1st. See the LRP website for more information: lrp.nih.gov.

Grants.gov will phase out PDF-based application packages on 12/31/17

Grants.gov has announced that as of the end of 2017, they will no longer make available or accept the PDF-based application packages, now known as "legacy packages". Instead, Grants.gov offers their online application preparation and submission website, Workspace. You can learn more about how to use this new tool here: Grants.gov Workspace Overview. Additionally, many of the Federal sponsors already have, or have recently created their own online submission tools, such as NSF's Fastlane and NIH's ASSIST, that you may also have the option to submit through.

If your proposal must go through Grants.gov for submission, get familiar with Workspace early and give it a go -- pretty soon you won't have a choice anymore!

Do you do research with human subjects?

Under the NIH's new definition of "clinical trial", your study might become one, soon.

Due to upcoming policy changes in the definition which broaden the requirements that qualify a study as a clinical trial, you may have to start checking "yes" to clinical trial on the Notice of Intent to Submit form and registering your studies on ClinicalTrials.gov, when you did not have to do so previously.

The NIH has created a helpful page at https://grants.nih.gov/policy/clinical-trials.htm that provides more information about the changes in policy, and the four questions which, if you answer "yes" to all, will define your human-subject study as a clinical trial.

Undergraduate research doesn't just benefit students...

...It also benefits universities, and science knowledge in general. So say David Rovnyak and George Shields in an Inside Higher Ed article entitled, "How Undergraduate Research Drives Science Forward":

Some in the scientific community have a skeptical view of undergraduate research. They may not doubt the benefits it offers students, but for true scientific innovation, it’s best to leave that to the flagships.

Such biases could not be more misguided.

Focusing mainly on PUIs (Primarily Undergraduate Institutions), Rovnyak and Shields explore the advances made, and prejudices suffered, by undergraduate researchers.

Fun with an AI

We're all familiar with the motivational posters popular in workplaces, encouraging employees to greater productivity and better morale with inspirational quotes set against soothing backgrounds. Unfortunately, artificial intelligence has a hard time understanding this concept.

InspiroBot is "an artificial intelligence dedicated to generating unlimited amounts of unique inspirational quotes" and claims, "all I want to do is please humans."

Inspire yourself at inspirobot.me/.

NSF moving their headquarters; websites will be down

The National Science Foundation is moving to Alexandria Virginia over a six week period from August 24 to October 1, 2017. To prepare for the physical move, they are taking advantage of the July 4th holiday weekend to move their Data Center in order to reduce the impact to the research community. NSF.gov, FastLane and Research.gov will all be down from 8pm on Friday June 30 to 6pm on July 4th. So you have no choice but to enjoy your barbecue. More information here: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/issuances/in139.jsp.

Amid controversy, NIH backs down on grant limits

On June 8, Francis Collins posted on The NIH Director about the Grant Support Index (GSI), the method that was used to determine the advantage limiting NIH grants over a researcher's career had for beginning and mid-level researchers, as well as taxpayers, and the fact that "significant concerns" about the GSI's methodology have been expressed -- enough so that the NIH is now backing off that plan, and has come up with a new one called the Next Generation Researchers Initiative. While this plan also "place[s] greater emphasis on current NIH funding programs aimed at early-stage and mid-career investigators", some researchers feel it's not enough, and that the initial plan was perhaps abandoned because it was "shoved down quickly by a bunch of senior folks," as Gary S. McDowell states in The Chronicle of Higher Education. We'll have to wait and see how this all plays out for all our researchers, regardless of seniority.

NIH policy workshop on biosafety and emerging technology in July

On July 18-19, the NIH will be hosting a workshop entitled "NIH Guidelines: Honoring the Past, Charting the Future" in Rockville, MD. The workshop is designed for investigators, research administrators and biosafety professionals. More information about the event and how to register can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/ybpt2tm9

Authors weigh costs and benefits of applying for grants

In an 2015 article in PLOS One that has been making the rounds lately, Ted and Courtney von Hippel report on a three-year study looking at 195 scientists and social scientists submitting a total of 287 federal research proposals. On average, they found that each proposal took 116 hours of work for the PIs, and an additional 55 hours of Co-Investigators' time. Was it worth it? On the whole, they calculated that each additional proposal submitted in a year increased the chances of being funded, but beyond that, participants in their study reported that even when unfunded, the experience of writing a proposal benefitted them in other ways such as helping to create new collaborations, fine-tune scientific thinking or train grad students and/or post-docs. You can read the entire article here: https://tinyurl.com/ycny2f82.

NIH looks to cap funding with the new Grant Support Index

On May 2, 2017, the National Institutes of Health announced a new approach to grant funding: the Grant Support Index (GSI). This index will assign points to individual researchers or labs based on the funding they receive from the NIH, with the aim to cap funding to one researcher or lab at 21 points. The purpose of this approach is to allow the NIH to fund more, and more diverse, researchers, and is based on a number of reports and findings, e.g., 40% of their funding is going to 10% of NIH-funded investigators and "greater degrees of funding may not generate as much additional scientific output as expected due to the impact of diminishing returns" (Mike Lauer, Open Mike blog). The NIH estimates that the new GSI may only affect about six percent of NIH-funded investigators.

For more information, please see the Open Mike blogpost, "Implementing Limits on Grant Support to Strengthen the Biomedical Research Workforce" and The NIH Director's website article, "New NIH Approach to Grant Funding Aimed at Optimizing Stewardship of Taxpayer Dollars".

Indirect costs and the "skinny" federal budget

Among the proposed cuts to federal grant funders, the NIH's budget is anticipated to be reduced by 18%, some of which could come out of indirect costs to universities, hospitals and other research institutions. Indirect costs are sometimes mistakenly thought of as "extra money" for a grant-holding institution rather than the reimbursement of expenses associated with doing research. Direct costs usually do not include essential items such as salaries for safety, compliance and grant management personnel, building upkeep, and utilities. These are all real costs to the research institution and must be paid for out of the indirect costs.

These misperceptions about indirect costs prompted COGR, the Council on Governmental Relations, an association of research institutions, to publish a three-page Talking Points document discussing what indirect costs are, how they are calculated, and how cutting indirect costs could affect research institutions like Fordham University. You can download it here: COGR Talking Points. Please feel free to share it.

How to Make Time for Research and Writing

Summer is just around the corner and can be a great time to be productive, even if you have to work around teaching summer classes, field work or family vacations. The Chronicle shares some thoughts from fellow academics around the country on How to Make Time for Research and Writing, part of their Productive Summer article series.

Office for Human Research Protections to hold community forum

The OHRP is teaming up with Hackensack University Medical Center on April 4-5, 2017 for a conference and community forum on "Big Data, Small Data and the Implications for Human Subject Research". The conference will be held at the Hilton Meadowlands in East Rutherford, NJ. A summary of the event:

Human research increasingly relies on the collection and analysis of data. Big Data uses large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations. Personalized medicine seeks to identify treatment tailored to the individual patient based on their predicted response or risk of disease; medical decision making, interventions and/or treatment modalities are identified through analysis of data sets. Genomics research has relied on the sharing of genome data since its inception. In all these cases, there are legal, regulatory and ethical implications related to the use of data both alone and in combination with bio-specimens. This conference seeks to create a dialogue that addresses the interception of these implications.

More information about the conference, the hotel and registration links can be found here: http://www.cvent.com/d/yvql9b.

A summary of new NIH policy changes

On the award side, the National Institutes of Health have made some changes to their policies on:

• final progress reports
• training for investigators involved in NIH-funded clinical trials, and
• reporting of NIH-funded clinical trials.

On the proposal side, there are changes in policy regarding:

• the items allowed to be included in appendices
• post-submission materials, and
• acceptable fonts/text color.

Finally, starting tomorrow you may submit an interim progress report rather than a final report if you are ending one grant cycle and waiting for the next cycle to begin. See this webpage for complete details and links to the Notices involved.

Increasing your research's impact

Academia is more crowded and competitive than ever, both in terms of research dollars and the multitude of ways people now have to shout about their own research, which could drown out your voice. Learn 8 Tips to increase the reach of your research in 2017 from editage Insights.