Volume 15, Number 1: July 16, 2008
FUNDING TIPS
New NC Biotech Center Funding Cycle
The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has announced its new funding cycle of grant programs. The center's grants and loans programs help researchers, educators, and businesses leverage larger financial awards. The Research and Education grants strengthen university research capabilities and foster academic and industrial collaborations. The Biotech Center's grant programs include:
- Collaborative Funding Grant
- Education Enhancement Grants
- Institutional Development Grants
- Biotechnology Research Grants
- Education Mini-Grants
- Multi-Disciplinary Research Grants
For details of these and other grant programs, click here.
How to Become a Grant Reviewer
Participating in a proposal review session is an excellent way to learn what sponsors are looking for, according to Karin Markin in a June 6, 2008 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education . She provides useful tips on how to become a grant reviewer, including this excerpt:
.The best way to find out what a review session is really like is to participate in one yourself. Being a junior faculty member need not be an obstacle. Many organizations need grant proposals reviewed, and with a little effort, you can probably find a gig.
Agencies typically look for people with expertise in the field of activity that a given round of proposals will support. That field of activity, though, may be broadly defined, so don't fret about not specializing in the same subfield, such as organic versus analytical chemistry.
Agencies seek out reviewers in several ways. Sometimes they actively recruit reviewers. They scan lists of the authors of papers at major scientific conferences and recent scholarly articles in the field. Agencies have been known to find reviewers through Google searches. In addition, many agencies accept applications to be a reviewer. Information and tools on their web sites have made it easier to volunteer your services.
Wow NIH Reviewers with Your Public Health Relevance Statement
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires applicants to submit public health relevance statements in grant applications in order to clearly explain the project's potential to improve public health. The public health relevance statement should be written in plain language that can be understood by a general, lay audience, as well as by your reviewers and colleagues. NIH uses these public health relevance statements for portfolio analyses, to identify research highlights to Congress, and to make the importance of the research clear to the public.
Statements of public health relevance are highlighted in a new field, separate from the project abstract, on the NIH CRISP (Computer Retrieval of Information Scientific Projects) tool found on the new NIH Report Web site.
Funding for Homeland Security Research
Investigators involved in counterterrorism research can find information about potential funding opportunities on the GrantSource Library's Homeland Security Research Funding webpage. This resource has been updated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science's summary of the proposed FY 2009 federal budget, including funding for combating terrorism. The page also includes major new funding initiatives and program areas from both federal and private funding sponsors.
Carolina faculty and research staff interested in obtaining more information about funding related to homeland security and antiterrorism are invited to contact the GrantSource Library (962-3463) for help in setting up a customized alert service to receive funding opportunities in specific research areas.