FundScience Blog

First, yet another specialized ARRA funding opportunity, and then an unusual NCMHD R21 opportunity for Innovative Faith-Based Approaches to Health Disparities Research. For the ARRA K12ish FOA, NCI, NCRR, NCCAM, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NIAMS, NIDA, NIDCR, NIDDK, NIMH, NINDS, NINR, and, interestingly, NLM are on board.

Institutional Comparative Effectiveness Research Mentored Career Development Award (KM1)

Application Due Date: March 25, 2010

The mentored career development approach will permit research-intensive institutions to develop an interdisciplinary environment catering to the needs of diverse populations of scholars including (but not limited to) those with backgrounds in medicine, pediatrics, surgery, dentistry, nursing, allied health, pharmacology, health care administration and management, clinical research design, epidemiology, biostatistics, biomedical informatics, economics, quality improvement, modeling systems, ethics, behavioral science, engineering, and law. Scholars supported through this program could include recent doctoral graduates who are entering the research workforce as well as established investigators who are seeking to extend their expertise or experience in CER in a mentored environment.

Total costs cannot exceed $2,500,000 for the 3-year project period; 8-10 awards are anticipated

The narrative cannot exceed 25 p in addressing: Background; Program Plan; Recruitment and Retention to Enhance Diversity; and Plan for Instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research. Please see RFA for appropriate program contact.

Innovative Faith-Based Approaches to Health Disparities Research (R21)

LOI Receipt Date: February 9, 2010
Application Due Date: March 17, 2010

Standard R21 budget ($275k-2y)/narrative length (6 p) – up to 8 awards are anticipated

NCMHD intends to cultivate empirical, formative, evaluative and transdisciplinary intervention research on faith-motivated initiatives, concepts and theories that have played an important role in addressing health disparities. The focus on exploratory, evaluative and/or intervention research will allow studies to assess the impact of faith-based initiatives and programs in health disparity populations; formulate hypotheses about the role and unique characteristics of faith communities in addressing health disparities; design targeted interventions; and track the efficacy of community and faith-based or faith-motivated programs that result from a participatory approach to research in the community.

Scientific/Research Contacts:

Irene Dankwa-Mullan, MD MPH
Acting Director, Office of Innovation and Program Coordination, NCMHD
Telephone: (301) 402-1366
Email: dankwamullani@mail.nih.gov

When it rains, it pours … in odd and extravagant ways …

Administrative Supplements for Comparative Effectiveness Research Workforce Development

Receipt Date: March 1, 2010

The maximum sum that may be requested is $500,000, as total costs, in FY2010 only. Up to 16 awards may be made, likely by September 2010 and, where possible, shortly after their approval.

This administrative supplement provides the opportunity for eligible grantees to develop, expand, and/or increase CER training, education, and career development programs within existing U.S. NIH-supported grants. Some types of awards from NIH (eg, S10 awards and many R and P awards) are not eligible for administrative supplements. Institutional awards that support the scope of training envisaged in this supplement announcement include the K12, K30, T32, T35, and T90 mechanisms, together with their KL and TL equivalents. Questions about eligibility should be addressed to the program officer and/or the grants management specialist for the award.

To be eligible, the parent grant must be active, and the training, education, and career development activities proposed in the supplement must be accomplished within the current competitive segment. The proposed supplement MUST be within the general scope of the peer-reviewed activities and aims approved within the parent grant, including projects on a no-cost extension.

Some examples of the types of supplements that could be appropriate include, but are not limited to: adding scholar or training slots for CER education and training through short courses, Certificate programs, and advanced degree-awarding programs; creating a course curriculum for early or midcareer researchers to develop or enhance skills in CER; creating an outreach training or course for community based research to develop or enhance skills in CER; and developing a CER training or course to include related fields such as communication and information dissemination science, medical decision-making, and outcomes and evaluation research as long as the proposal’s specific aims supports Federal Coordinating Council-defined CER.

Literally, considering ARRA research awards are tax-payer funded.

ScienceWorksForUS, which highlights all aspects of stimulus funding for university-based research activities, is brought to you by the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and The Science Coalition. You’ll find the expected news feeds about the economic stimulus program generally, ARRA-funded research anecdotes, and research findings stemming from ARRA-funded efforts.

The level of detail at the state level is nicely organized: total dollars and number of awards plus links to individual universities (the Web pages on which they report their ARRA awards and whatnot), a breakdown by funding agency (NIH, NSF, DoE), and more state- and university-specific news releases related to ARRA-funded research. You can run your cursor over the US map to quickly compare who’s getting what out of this initiative and click on individual states for the aforementioned details.

As a reminder, NIAID invites you to contribute your own story of how ARRA funds have helped you, as does the US DHHS, which invites you to submit stories or comments about ARRA funding.

No, not an online dating service … ResearchMatch is an NCRR-funded secure registry that allows individuals to sign up to receive alerts about clinical research in which they might be interested and for which they might be eligible — and researchers to sign up to find potentially eligible participants for their studies.

Currently, 40 of the 46 current CTSA sites are participating, and the registry will eventually expand to include non-CTSA institutions. As described in the NIH’s news release:

After an individual has self-registered to become a volunteer, ResearchMatch’s security features ensure that personal information is protected until volunteers authorize the release of their contact information to a specific study that may be of interest to them. Volunteers are notified electronically when they are a possible match and then make the decision regarding the release of their contact information. It also will promote choice as there are no obligations on the volunteer to participate in studies.

According to the ResearchMatch.org participant FAQ, “[approved] researchers will not be given access to begin looking for potential study Volunteers through ResearchMatch until approximately January 2010.” As further explained by the researcher FAQ:

ResearchMatch is a not-for-profit activity and is free for any participating site & their researchers. … Researchers at participating sites will be given access to register through the ResearchMatch system. Upon registration, researchers may request either feasibility or recruitment access … your access to recruit via ResearchMatch will last only as long as your IRB-study approval.

After you have been granted recruitment access, you will be able to search for appropriate matches amongst the non-identifiable ResearchMatch Volunteer profiles in the system. You will enter your study’s criteria in the ResearchMatch Search Builder which will yield a list of these potential matches. You will send out IRB-approved content in your initial recruitment message to these potential matches through ResearchMatch. The secure ResearchMatch clearinghouse will route your message to each of these potential matches and they will have the option of replying yes, no, or no response. Your study’s home page will feature all those Volunteers who say yes and show aggregate figures/charts demonstrating the response rate to your initial recruitment message. Once the Volunteer has authorized ResearchMatch to release their contact information to you, you will be responsible for managing this contact information as called for by your IRB-study protocol.

Vanderbilt, which maintains and whose IRB oversees ResearchMatch.org, also has its own DNA bank called BioVu, which includes leftover blood from all patients seeking treatment unless they opt out when signing the the Vanderbilt Consent for Treatment and Agreement to Pay form.

As I mentioned earlier, ORI has ventured into the blogosphere, and a few recent posts caught my attention, such as the Meaning of RCR by John Galland, PhD, Director pf the Division of Education & Integrity. He concludes with a list of objectives for RCR training:

(a) Protect animal subjects, human participants, research personnel, and the environment
(b) Be honest and transparent, not deceptive (e.g., falsifying, fabricating, or plagiarizing data or deceitful attribution of authorship)
(c) Be fair by not introducing unwanted bias into research results, conclusions, or inferences (e.g., conflicts of interest and commitment, sloppiness)
(d) Be benevolent, not be malicious (e.g., thievery of ideas, unfair criticism during peer review for personal gain; exploitive of others)
(e) Be open to creativity and innovation
(f) Protect the public trust

I like (e) conceptually but cannot for the life of me imagine how typical RCR training would achieve this … hopefully not during lectures about falsification and fabrication.

Today I spotted a new post of personal interest on the Integration of RCR Education and Bioethics Education. Specifically, the question is posed,

What educational programs, what research environment can be fostered, at our institutions to help researchers with such decisions [e.g., fabricate data to secure grant funding needed to sustain research program & staff], or better yet, to help them never have to make such decisions?

Regular visitors will know that I monitor studies and analyses of procedural and distributive justice in the context of the research environment, such as the work of Brian Martinson, Melissa Anderson, et al.. Nice to see ORI giving a little thought to the research environment itself (and its administration) as a means for preventing misbehavior and worse. In discussing grant funding policy here at MWEG, some have suggested that institutions be required to pay the major portion of researcher salaries (hard money), and this would certainly be one way to foster a much more pleasant environment that would likewise be more conducive to the responsible conduct of research. If you have other suggestions, I am quite sure Dr. Galland would appreciate such comments on his blog.