Reminder to Review Accuracy of Your Institution’s Grant Award Data before October 13

August 31, 2016

As we turn the corner toward the end of the fiscal year, we’d like to remind research institution officials to review whether your awarded grants are accurately assigned to the correct department /school within eRA Commons. This ensures that the grants are reported correctly in tools like RePORT for year-end reporting, and displayed under the right division/school in eRA Commons. On October 13, data for the government’s fiscal year will be frozen, …..

NIH Loan Payment Programs (LRPs) Accepting Applications Sept. 1 – Nov. 15

August 30, 2016

The pursuit of academic research career can be a challenge, especially when faced with high levels of student loan debt. The escalating costs of advanced education and training are forcing some scientists to abandon their research careers for higher-paying private industry or private practice careers. In exchange for a commitment to conduct biomedical or behavioral research, the NIH will repay up to $70,000 of student loan debt (over two years) per two-year contract through the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs).

If you are a qualified health professional who agrees to engage in NIH mission-relevant research for at least 20 hours per week at a nonprofit institution, you may be eligible to apply to the one of the five extramural LRPs: …..

NRSA Postdoctoral Stipend Guidelines for FY2017

August 30, 2016

This month, NIH published the projected fiscal year 2017 stipend guidelines for postdoctoral trainees and fellows supported by National Research Service Awards (NRSAs). For NRSA-supported postdocs with less than one year’s experience, the stipend level will increase to $47,484. In keeping with the recommendation of the Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group of the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director, stipend levels then increase dependent on years of postdoctoral experience. ….

Model Organisms, Part 3: A Look at All RPGs for Six Models

August 24, 2016

We are most appreciative of the feedback we’ve received, through the blog and elsewhere, on NIH support of model organism research. In part 1 of this series, we mentioned that we asked two separate groups to analyze NIH applications and awards. In parts 1 and 2 we primarily focused on R01-based data that were curated and analyzed by our Office of Portfolio Analysis. In part 3, we show results from a broader range of research project grant (RPG) data that were prepared and analyzed by our Office of Research Information Systems. This group used an automated thesaurus-based text mining system which delves into not only public data such as project titles, abstracts, public health relevance statements, but also the specific aims contained in RPG applications. ….

A Look at NIH Support for Model Organisms, Part Two

August 3, 2016

We were pleased to hear the feedback on our previous post on NIH-funded model-organism research. One question a number of you asked is: what’s happening with research involving mouse models? Thanks to additional work by colleagues in NIH’s Office of Portfolio Analysis (OPA) and Office of Extramural Research/Office of Research Information Systems, I’m excited to … Continue reading “A Look at NIH Support for Model Organisms, Part Two”