The University of Toledo

3. NSF InfoBrief

4. Tell NIH How They Can Ease Your Financial Conflict of Interest Burden

5. The Table Of Contents Of The August 29, 2008 NIH Guide

NIH considers the following groups as underrepresented in biomedical research:

• People with disabilities.
• People from disadvantaged backgrounds, which include:
  • Those whose annual family income is below established low-income thresholds.
  • Those from a rural, inner-city, or other environment that has inhibited them from getting the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for a research career.
• Racial and ethnic groups such as blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaskan Natives, and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.

If you can show that you are underrepresented at your institution, you may still qualify for some special programs.

Do you think the Department of Health and Human Services should issue additional guidance on human subjects research training or require institutional training and education programs?

You can let the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) know what's on your mind.

Your thoughts will help HHS decide whether to give more training recommendations or set more regulations requiring institutions to implement training and education programs.

Submit comments before September 29, 2008, to humansubjectstraining@hhs.gov.

The National Science Foundation has issued a new "InfoBrief" concerning federal science and engineering R&D funding to universities in FY 2007. The 8-page brief shows that federal S&E R&D expenditures rose by 1.1% in FY 2007.  After adjusting for inflation, this represents a 1.6% decline from FY 2006. Overall, universities and colleges reported S&E R&D expenditures of $49.4 billion in FY 2007, 3.5% more than in the previous year ($47.7 billion). When adjusted for inflation, academic R&D rose by 0.8% in FY 2007. Funding from all nonfederal sources combined grew by 7.8% (5.0% in inflation-adjusted terms) in FY 2007. R&D expenditures financed by state and local government funding grew by 6.1% in FY 2007, to $3.1 billion. The most noteworthy increases were reported for industry-funded expenditures, which grew 11.2% to $2.7 billion. Funding originating from academic institutions' own funds increased 6.6% in FY 2007 to $9.7 billion.  <http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08320/nsf08320.pdf>

NIH is giving you an opportunity to comment on the burden -- measured in time and cost -- of collecting, recording, and reporting financial conflict of interest information.

For background and a list of focus points for your comments, read the July 14, 2008, Federal Register notice on Regulations.gov. Your response should address conflict of interest burdens, not the policy as a whole.

Submit your comments by September 15, 2008, to Mikia Currie to the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration at curriem@od.nih.gov.

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 Rick Francis, rick.francis@utoledo.edu, at HSC extension 4252.

NIH Guide For Week Ending August 29, 2008

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

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/WeeklyIndex.cfm?WeekEnding=8-29-2008