WU's Office of the Provost Releases Interdisciplinary Focused RFPs

The Office of the Provost has announced two opportunities to encourage faculty collaboration across schools and departments.

1. The Request for Proposals for Global Certificate Courses 2012
http://provost.wustl.edu/request-proposals-global-certificate-courses-2012#overlay-context=policies-reports-resources

The Global Certificate Program provides a platform for outstanding faculty to offer innovative day school courses that focus on global issues and fosters creative inquiry across disciplines and schools. These courses will introduce students to big ideas, address questions that affect our contemporary global society and encourage students to become engaged global citizens by increasing their global competency. While these courses will be created for the Global Certificate, they will be home-based in the proposed faculty’s department and/or school and are an opportunity to teach students across schools

2. The Cross-School Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant RFP 2012
http://provost.wustl.edu/cross-school-interdisciplinary-teaching-grant-rfp

Interdisciplinary faculty collaboration is fast becoming a hallmark of Washington University. The Office of the Provost wishes to encourage such collaboration across school and departmental lines to enhance faculty knowledge and enrich faculty research. In addition, the Task Force on Undergraduate Education has endorsed support for cross-disciplinary teaching to further interdisciplinary learning opportunities for our students. The Provost seeks to support interdisciplinary teaching to foster innovation and to channel funds toward the most promising courses in their infancy.

Basic social and behavioral research on culture, health, and wellbeing (R24)

Additional Information:

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-LM-12-002.html

Description:
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), issued on behalf of the NIH Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences Opportunity Network (OppNet), will provide grants for infrastructure support to develop, strengthen, and evaluate transdisciplinary approaches and methods for basic behavioral and/or social research on the relationships among cultural practices/beliefs, health, and wellbeing.

Academic-Community Partnership Conference Series (R13)

Additional Information:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-12-102.html

Description:

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) encourages Research Conference Grant (R13) applications to conduct health disparities-related meetings, workshops, and symposia. The purpose of the Academic-Community Partnership Conference Series is to bring together academic institutions/organizations and community organizations to identify opportunities for addressing health disparities through the use of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). The objectives of meetings conducted as part of this award will be to: (1) establish and/or enhance academic-community partnerships; (2) identify community-driven research priorities, and (3) develop long-term collaborative CBPR research agendas. Thus, it is expected these partnerships will lead to grant applications for the support of CBPR projects designed to meet identified community needs. The areas of focus for these partnerships may include one or more of the following community-health issues: infant mortality; Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS); fibroid tumors; childhood, adolescent, and/or adult obesity; health literacy; techniques for outreach and information dissemination; pediatric and maternal HIV/AIDS prevention; and violence prevention.

Interventions for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Native American Populations (R01)

Additional Information:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-11-346.html

Description:
The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to develop, adapt, and test the effectiveness of health promotion and disease prevention interventions in Native American (NA) populations. NA populations are exposed to considerable risk factors that significantly increase their likelihood of chronic disease, substance abuse, mental illness, and HIV-infection. The intervention program should be culturally appropriate and promote the adoption of healthy lifestyles, improve behaviors and social conditions and/or improve environmental conditions related to chronic disease, the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, mental illness or HIV-infection. The intervention program should be designed so that it could be sustained within the entire community within existing resources, and, if successful, disseminated in other Native American communities. The long-term goal of this FOA is to reduce mortality and morbidity in NA communities. For the purposes of this FOA Native Americans include the following populations: Alaska Native, American Indian, and Native Hawaiian. The term 'Native Hawaiian' means any individual any of whose ancestors were natives, prior to 1778, of the area which now comprises the State of Hawaii. Click here for more information.





Deadline: May 15, 2013

PhRMA Foundation Young Investigator Grant Program

Additional Information:

http://www.phrmafoundation.org/

Description:

Medication adherence is defined as the extent to which a patient acts in accordance with the prescribed interval and dose of a treatment regimen. Extensive evidence shows that medication adherence can yield better clinical and economic outcomes. However, many individuals do not take their medications as recommended. Closing the adherence gap is important to improving the quality of health care, encouraging better chronic care management, and promoting better outcomes. The purpose of the PhRMA Foundation Young Investigator Grant Program is to encourage research aimed at improving adherence by providing financial support to promising researchers.

The fellowship will be awarded to candidates who establish a sound and innovative research agenda focused on the goal of improved medication adherence. Relevant research goals may include the development or evaluation of policies, interventions, or tools that are potentially successful in improving medication adherence. We are currently offering three types of awards to be granted for one year:

· Pre-doctoral fellowship award of $25,000 (view details)

· Post-doctoral fellowship award of $50,000 (view details)

· Research starter grants of $50,000 (view details)

 

 

Application deadline: October 30, 2012
Anticipated award date: January 15, 2013

 

 

Basic social and behavioral research on culture, health, and wellbeing (R24)

OppNet, NIH’s Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network, announces its second FY2013 RFA: 

Application due date

December 17, 2012

Purpose

This RFA encourages grant applications for infrastructure support to develop, strengthen, and evaluate transdisciplinary approaches and methods for basic behavioral and/or social research on the relationships among cultural practices/beliefs, health, and wellbeing. This includes an appreciation for more comprehensive understandings of the relationships regarding cultural attitudes, beliefs, practices, and processes, on outcomes relevant to human health and wellbeing.  Model animal research teams are welcome to apply.  OppNet intends to commit $1,425,000 in FY2013 for approximately 5-7 awards. Future year amounts will depend on annual appropriations.

Background

Culture usually is defined in terms of beliefs and practices that are shared within a population, which itself may share attributes such as ethnicity, race, language, gender, sexuality, specific physical impairments, or geographic space. These beliefs and practices reflect common values, socialization processes that are intrinsic to the population of interest, and their other shared attributes.  The specific processes by which culture encompasses health-related beliefs and practices may be obscured by surrogate variables (e.g., language, national origin, race/ethnicity). There is a need for research that improves the conceptualization and measurement of culture and does this in the context of health and social and behavioral processes that influence health. 

The R24 mechanism is designed to build research infrastructure and incorporates research projects as part of this effort.  Projects should bring together transdisciplinary teams of investigators who collectively can provide new insights into relationships between aspects of culture and health. The team should choose a small project that demonstrates the power of their approach to deliver new insights that lead to improved health outcomes or facilitates the effectiveness of health research. This project may provide formative or pilot data which can be used to inform future, larger transdisciplinary health research.

OppNet welcomes research teams that include expertise complementary to basic social and behavioral sciences, e.g., arts, ethics, humanities, law.  Given OppNet's express mission to advance the basic behavioral and social sciences, applications must have a majority emphasis in basic behavioral and social sciences.  For feedback on specific topics, please consult the program staff listed in Agency Contacts.

About OppNet

OppNet is a trans-NIH initiative that funds activities to build the collective body of knowledge about the nature of behavior and social systems, and that deepen our understanding of basic mechanisms of behavioral and social processes. All 24 NIH Institutes and Centers that fund research and five Program Offices within the NIH Office of the Director (ICOs) co-fund and co-manage OppNet. All OppNet initiatives invite investigators to propose innovative research that will advance a targeted domain of basic social and behavioral sciences and produce knowledge and/or tools of potential relevance to multiple domains of health- and lifecourse-related research. 

OppNet uses the NIH definition of basic behavioral and social science research (b-BSSR) (http://obssr.od.nih.gov/about_obssr/BSSR_CC/BSSR_definition/definition.aspx) to determine application responsiveness. Consequently, OppNet strongly encourages prospective investigators to consult this definition, OppNet’s answers to frequently asked questions about b-BSSR (http://oppnet.nih.gov/about-faqs.asp), OppNet’s Coordinating Committee members, and the Agency Contacts section of this FOA for individuals with expertise in the research subject matter and the OppNet initiative.

Applicants should understand that the National Library of Medicine (NLM), which made this FOA available to the public, is not necessarily the NIH IC that ultimately will manage a funded OppNet project. Instead, OppNet assigns funding and project management of meritorious applications to one of 24 NIH ICs whose scientific mission most closely corresponds to each research project.  For more information about OppNet, its NIH members, its grant portfolio, and all its current funding opportunities, visit http://oppnet.nih.gov. 

Center for Community Health and Partnerships St. Louis Community-University Health Research Partnerships

Additional Information:
 https://publichealth.wustl.edu/initiatives/CCHP/Pages/CUHRP.aspx

Details:
The St. Louis Community-University Health Research Partnerships (CUHRP) initiative focuses on health care problems of importance to the community with the goal of improving health outcomes, reducing health disparities, and fostering long-term collaborations between university faculty and community-based organizations in St. Louis city and county.

In 2009, Washington University, Saint Louis University, and BJC HealthCare partnered to fund CUHRP. The St. Louis Regional Health Commission administered the first round of funds and coordinated the initiative’s activities. As of August 2012, a team from Saint Louis University and Washington University is coordinating the remaining funds of the CUHRP initiative.

As part of the CUHRP initiative two grant opportunities are available for one-year funding: Partnership Development grants ($5,000) and Implementation grants ($40,000).