Volume 14, Number 9: March 5, 2008
FEDERAL NEWS
Carolina Receives DHS Center of Excellence
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced February 26 that UNC-Chapel Hill and Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi will co-lead the Center of Excellence for Natural Disasters, Coast Infrastructure and Emergency Management.
DHS Press Release
UNC News Release
NIH Replaces Training on Human Participants
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research released on March 1, 2008 a new online tutorial, Protecting Human Research Participants, which will replace the previous online training offered by the National Cancer Institute.
NSF Report on Cost Sharing Policies
The National Science Board's Task Force on Cost Sharing has released its Report to Congress on Cost Sharing Policies at the National Science Foundation (pdf). The report makes recommendations for future National Science Foundation (NSF) fiscal policy. Among other recommendations, the report suggests reinstating cost-sharing for some industry-oriented research centers.
NSF Launches Research.gov
The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently launched Research.gov, a new initiative that modernizes FastLane and allows institutions and grantees to access streamlined research grants management services and other resources for multiple federal research agencies, beginning with NASA and the Department of Defense.
Research.gov offers the following publicly-available services, and NSF plans to expand its features to a one-stop Web site for grantees and federal research agencies:
- Research Spending and Results Search: Find out where federal research grant dollars are going. Search awards by a number of elements including awardee and congressional district.
- Research Headlines: View research news and articles from NSF and partner agencies.
- Policy Library: Find agency policies, guides, terms and conditions, and instructions that applicants and agencies need to conduct grants business.
NSF Partners With Google and IBM to Enhance Academic Research Opportunities
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate announced the creation of a strategic relationship with Google, Inc. and IBM. The Cluster Exploratory (CluE) relationship will make available to the academic research community a large-scale, massively distributed computing cluster for conducting experiments and testing new ideas.
DoD Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program 2008 Program Announcements
Over the past month, the Department of Defense (DoD) has released program announcements for its Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. Program announcements in five disease areas are available: Breast Cancer, Neurofibromatosis, Ovarian Cancer, Prostate Cancer, and Tuberous Sclerosis Complex. The pre-announcement for Peer Reviewed Medical Research has also been released, with the full announcement due by April 2008. Two more programs are anticipated for release this spring: Autism Spectrum Disorders and Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses.