Volume 13, Number 12: June 6, 2007
FEDERAL NEWS
New Initiatives Selected for NIH Roadmap
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a new cohort of four initiative areas for the NIH Roadmap. Ideas were solicited from mid to late 2006, and final selections were made by Institute and Center directors.
- Microbiome
- Epigenetics
- Protein capture tools / Proteome tools
- Phenotyping services and tools
Additionally, the Genetic Connectivity Map will be supported as an NIH Roadmap Pilot Study.
DOE Invites Research Proposals for Tapping Supercomputing Resources
The Department of Energy (DOE) invites proposals for innovative, large-scale computational science projects. Allocations of supercomputing and data storage resources, along with technical support, will be made under DOE's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program for computationally intensive, large-scale research projects. The five-year old program encourages proposals to solve challenging problems using high-performance computing systems.
DOE's Office of Science expects to award up to 250 million processor hours in 2008, nearly three times the amount awarded in 2007. In addition, to improve the computational readiness review, each site will be offering startup grants for any applicant who needs to perform scaling studies.
Through INCITE, researchers will be able to use some of the world's most powerful supercomputers at DOE national laboratories (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory). For a description of the resources available under this call, click here.
Report on Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Programs
The Academic Competitiveness Council released a report on the effectiveness of the nation's science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education programs. The council was established with a federal mandate to analyze STEM programs from all federal agencies, investigating effectiveness and identifying areas for improvement and expansion.
Generally, the report was negative, finding most STEM programs suffering from inadequate evaluations of effectiveness. The council's recommendations include not increasing funding levels until better measures of effectiveness are in place and improving coordination between agencies and with states and local schools.
The report also provides tools for researchers, including pointers to rigorous metrics for evaluating program efficacy as well as a comprehensive overview of federal STEM education programs.
Technical Assistance for Health Disparities RFA
Date: June 15
Time: 2:00 to 3:30 p.m.
The National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities will hold a technical assistance telephone conference call for the Community-Based Participatory Research Initiative in Reducing and Eliminating Health Disparities—Intervention Research Phase. This conference call will allow potential applicants to discuss and clarify any issues or questions related to this Request for Applications. Advance registration by June 11 is required.
Grants.gov Response Time Delays
Due to a high volume of submissions expected through Grants.gov (because of multiple agency closings through June 5), the response time for processing applications may be longer than usual. Please try to submit your applications prior to the closing to avoid the times of peak volume. Remember that it may take up to 48 hours for your submission to be processed through Grants.gov, so please wait at least that long before contacting the contact center if you do not receive email notifications. Also, please allow applications to complete processing prior to submitting changed or corrected applications. For further information, see the Grants.gov FAQs or the Track Your Application page.
EPA Invites Comments on 2007 Report on the Environment
The Environmental Protection Agency has released a draft of the 2007 Report on the Environment: Science Report, which compiles data on critical trends in the environment and human health and identifies key limitations and gaps in information, providing direction for future research and monitoring efforts.
Public feedback on the draft is sought by June 25, 2007. The final report will be released in late 2007.
Grants.gov System Scheduled Maintenance
Grants.gov will be unavailable from June 9, 2007 through June 10, 2007 to complete upgrades to the infrastructure. The site will be live Monday, June 11, 2007. For continued updates in "What's New This Week at Grants.gov," click here.
FDA Call for Comment on Policy for Protection of Study Subjects
The Food and Drug Administration released last month a draft guidance, Protecting the Rights, Safety, and Welfare of Study Subjects - Supervisory Responsibilities of Investigators, which clarifies the role and responsibility of investigators in ensuring the rights, safety, and welfare of study subjects.
Comments on this draft guidance are due by July 9, 2007.
NIH eRA Commons and eSubmission News
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) eRA Commons has been undergoing changes and updates through the past months, as more programs transition to electronic submission.
In addition to NIH notices on updates appearing in the Table of Contents, you can also check out other information sources:
• eRA Commons support page, which has release notes and known issues.
• NIH eSubmission listservs, with lists for PIs and research administrators.
• Research Administrators Support Group listserv, for UNC-Chapel Hill-specific items of interest.
New NSF Cooperative Agreement Guidelines Announced
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a revision of the Cooperative Agreement Financial and Administrative Terms and Conditions (CA-FATC), effective June 1, 2007. All new NSF cooperative agreements and funding amendments to existing cooperative agreements will begin referencing and are subject to the CA-FATC. The CA-FATC revision incorporates references to the new Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (which includes the former Grant Policy Manual and the Grant Proposal Guide). Other significant changes to CA-FATC include updates and changes to documentation regarding prior approval, allowable costs, payments, reporting, patent rights, cost sharing, nondiscrimination, and reporting classifiable information.