NIH will require eRA Commons IDs for students starting 10/1

For the purposes of project reporting, the NIH will be requiring that any graduate or undergraduate student participating on an NIH-funded project for one month or longer must have an eRA Commons username. Please contact our office to set up usernames for any students appearing in your report that need them.

Please also advise your students that since they'll potentially have these accounts for the entirety of their research careers, they may not want to use irreverent handles such as "labrat4lyfe" or "I_can_haz_neuroscience?"

NIH Loan Repayment Program

The National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) repay the student loans of doctoral level, biomedical or behavioral scientists conducting research funded by nonprofit institutions. The application cycle opens on September 1, 2014 and closes on November 17, 2014. You may be eligible to receive up to $70,000 of qualified educational debt repayment with a 2 year contract.

Apply here.

Are you putting off your scholarly writing? Don't.

Joli Jensen of the University of Tulsa says you'll always have "more important" things to do instead of writing and why you need to make the time for it in this Vitae article Face It: Your Decks will Never be Cleared.

Defense Threat Reduction Agency webinar

The Chemical and Biological Technologies Department of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency 
is presenting a webinar for STEM faculty and students.

Tuesday, 9 September 2014 at 1pm EDT

Meet DTRA Science & Technology Managers

Learn how to search for employment, internships, and grant opportunities

Click here to register

NIH encouraging Individual Development Plans for grad students and postdocs

Starting October 1, 2014, "annual progress reports... must include a section to describe how individual development plans are used to identify and promote the career goals of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers associated with the award." At least initially, you will not need to include any specific plan in your progress report, but rather state whether or not you are using an individual development plan to help provide a structured training experience for the grad students and postdocs on your award. As the NIH is allowing institutions to decide whether to implement this encouraged practice and the management of such, Fordham's Office of Research and Office of Sponsored Programs are currently exploring options for the best approach to this. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, for more information on the Individual Development Plans, you may want to review:
The original notice NOT-OD-13-093;
The revised notice NOT-OD-14-113

NSF's Biology Directorate offers tips on "Broadening Participation"

Along with the NSF's very familiar mandate of "Broader Impacts" is the lesser-trumpeted "Broadening Participation" -- but it may be just as important to your Biological Sciences Directorate proposal. See this publication for more information on what they mean by this, and how to incorporate it into your next proposal.

NSF seeks reviewers for their fellowship program

The NSF's Graduate Research Fellowship Program, now in its 62nd year, needs reviewers. Interested? Please see their 'Dear Colleague' letter on the subject.