As everything has gone virtual these days, so do we. Join us from your favorite chair, at your favorite table, and in your favorite room for the 2020 NIH Virtual Seminar on Program Funding and Grants Administration at the end of October.
Working with animals in your research? The Interagency Collaborative Animal Research Education (ICARE) Project invites you to join us in ICARE Dialogues: Optimizing Animal Care and Use Program Success in a Changing Environment.
Nearly all grant applications should be using our updated application forms (FORMS-F) at this point. There are a few notable exceptions.
NIH is seeking applications for the 2021 Transformative Research awards through a new funding opportunity (RFA-RM-20-013) recently released on Friday, May 21, 2020. And, as a way to address concerns about bias in peer review while also enhancing diversity, this High Risk, High Reward program is going to anonymize the review of Transformative Research Award applications.
The scientific peer review process benefits greatly when the study section reviewers bring not only strong scientific qualifications and expertise, but also a broad range of backgrounds and varying scientific perspectives. Bringing new viewpoints into the process replenishes and refreshes the study section, enhancing the quality of its output.
Planning to apply for a fellowship or career development award? If so, don’t forget your ORCID iD. We encourage everybody from graduate students to senior scientists to register for an ORCID account and link it to their eRA Commons personal profile. But for some grant applicants, it’s an absolute must. ORCID iDs are required for PD/PIs on individual fellowship and career development applications submitted for due dates on or after January 25, 2020.
NIH has considered a different approach to defining scientists from disadvantaged backgrounds. We reviewed a wide variety of criteria, looking for those that are relatively easy to self-evaluate and that capture a large proportion of affected people.
In a paper recently published in Science Advances, we delved into the underlying factors associated with the funding gap between white and black researchers. We identified three decision points where disparate outcomes arose between white and black researchers: 1) the decision to bring applications to discussion during peer review study section meetings; 2) impact score assignments for those applications brought to discussion; and (3) a previously unstudied factor, topic choice – that is what topic the investigators chose to study.
Inviting women to speak at conferences matters for many reasons – it’s a matter of fairness; it gives eminently qualified women a level playing field; it is just the right thing to do. In essence, it’s about changing the fundamental culture of the biomedical research enterprise to allow full participation from people of all backgrounds. In that vein, I’d like to remind you that if you are applying for an R13 conference grant from NIH, please be sure to read the requirements in the Funding Opportunity Announcement, where meeting diversity is a long-standing expectation.
Today we released a very important statement outlining actions NIH is taking to become part of the solution to address sexual harassment in science. I am including the full text of the statement below, as it speaks for itself. For additional information please visit our webpage.
