The University of Toledo

3. Only NIH Awards Affect New PI Status

4. Give These New Research Tools a Try

5. The Table Of Contents Of The April 4, 2008 NIH Guide

Last month the University of Toledo was visited by Dr. Samuel Scheiner, Progam Director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology (DEB).  Dr. Sheiner offered some insights and advice for applications to the NSF in general, and to DEB in particular. The current funding level for ‘core’ programs is only adequate to fund about 10% of the proposals submitted.

Decide which NSF division would be the ‘best’ for your particular proposal.  Keep in mind that:

• The boundaries are intentionally fuzzy so that there are no cracks for each particular proposal. 
• PI’s should not be afraid to call program officers to discuss their proposal and receive help in ascertaining which is the appropriate division.

Look closely at a match between program specifics and your needs. For example, Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis (OPUS) provides for sabbatical funding; Research Coordination Networks (RCN) funds cross-institutional activity. CAREER awards for Biology are a good match for faculty who have been working for 3-4 years, not so much for brand-new faculty.  These awards fund the integration of research and teaching and are designed to fund 5-year plans.

Tips for Broader Impacts sections –

• ½to 1 page in length
• Point to past accomplishments
• OK for a portion of the budget to be used for impact activities

Can include:

• Education
• Public outreach
• Use by policy makers
• Contributions to databases
• Development of software that is given away freely
• Involve undergraduates

Include letters from stakeholders as appropriate. 

And if you're not successful the first time, incorporate constructive criticism and try again!

COS Funding Opportunities has a new interface designed to make your funding search more efficient. Improvements to the Advanced Search, Search Results and Record pages include:

New Advanced Search features

• Compact form with the most important and popular fields at the top
• Additional fields that users can choose with just a click
• The Search Exclusion field has returned, by popular request
• Overall cleaner look that makes it easier to see more information with just a glance

New Search Results features

• Compact view to scan results quickly
• Mouse-over pop ups to show key record information without clicking in to the full record
• Faceted searching to help analyze results and refine your search with a quick click
• Save a search to the COS Workbench easily, without leaving the Results page

New Record View features

• Compact view to allow you to easily scan more information up front
• Key information is highlighted
• Track a Record on the Workbench and tag it, without leaving the record page
• Overall Cleaner look that makes records easier to review

All data and your personal settings remain unchanged. Take a few minutes to try the new Advanced Search interface right now!

NIH recently revised the definition of a new principal investigator (PI) again. Now, only NIH awards affect new investigator status for future grants, not awards from other PHS agencies. See NIAID's explanation at Are You "New"?

Incase you haven't heard, the NIH Library's Web of Science® moved to the ISI Web of Knowledge platform, but all the popular tools are still there. You can use the tool to search for articles or collaborators, conduct a cited reference search to see who is citing papers in your area of research, or set up alerts to track publications.

Looking for collaborators? Check out BiomedExperts, a literature-based social networking platform. This online community connects biomedical researchers by analyzing the networks of coauthors with whom each investigator publishes scientific papers.

Doyou use National Library of Medicine's PubMed? Next time try GoPubMed, a knowledge-based search engine for life sciences based on PubMed. By using Gene Ontology and MeSH terms, it helps you find relevant information faster.

The previous static listings for browsing published NIH Guide announcements have been replaced with real-time database query listings that retrieve only active Requests for Applications ( RFAs ) and Program Announcements ( PAs ), based on the expiration dates stated in those announcements. The new listing for NIH Guide Notices displays Notices published over the last two years, by default, since expiration dates are not currently assigned to these announcements. Links to these new resources are available from the main NIH Guide Funding Opportunities and Notices page ( http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/index.html ).

All announcements (active plus inactive) in each category may also be viewed by using selections in the drop-down box at the top of each listing page. Clicking on header links allows re-sorting of lists. In addition, a new Ad Hoc NIH Guide Database Search page http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/search_guide.htm is available, which allows for individualized queries with various selection criteria.

If you have any difficulty obtaining the information you need from the Guide, contact Carol Wilkerson, carol.wilkerson@utoledo.edu, at HSC extension 4252, or Rick Francis, rick.francis@utoledo.edu, at MC extension 6193.

NIH Guide For Week Ending April 4, 2008

[Use The Link Below To Access Table of Contents of Guide]

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/WeeklyIndex.cfm?WeekEnding=4-04-2008