May 27, 2008

New UC Program to Fund Campus/Lab Collaboration

The University of California is offering a new research opportunity funded by a portion of the management fees that may be awarded to the University for the management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory based on an annual performance evaluation process included in each of the two management contracts. The Regents of the University have directed that this net fee income, anticipated to be approximately $20 million per year, be allocated to research that is related to the missions of the laboratories and emphasizes collaborations between University faculty, staff, and students and the research staff of the laboratories. Proposals may be for awards of $20,000 to $2 million per year for one to three years.

Update (6/19/2008): The deadline for letters of intent is now June 27, 2008 (originally June 20, 2008). Final proposals are due August 4, 2008. See http://www.ucop.edu/UC-Lab-Research for the Request for Proposals, Frequently Asked Questions, and additional information.

May 21, 2008

NIH Planning Move to Adobe Forms

The National Institutes of Health continues to plan the transition of Grants.gov application packages to Adobe forms, and has published an update in an April eRA Commons News announcement.

NIH has over 700 funding opportunity announcements (FOAs), and putting the grant application packages for all these announcements into the Adobe format is a big project. To test the system, NIH expects to issue a pilot FOA in August 2008 for an October receipt date. If the pilot is successful, then the full transition will begin in December 2008.

When the transition is complete, NIH will use the Adobe forms for all Grants.gov forms, including the training grants (T), career awards (K), and fellowships (F) application packages expected in 2009. More information about the transition is available at the NIH Electronic Submission Timeline page, updated May 12, 2008.

In the meantime, NIH has extended the expiration dates for several NRSA training, fellowship, and career development FOAs until January 8, 2010, and will continute to accept paper applications for the listed FOAs until these mechanisms have been converted to electronic submission.

Update (5/23/2008): NIH has summarized the NIH/AHRQ transition to Adobe application forms in a May 23 NIH Guide notice.

Update (7/2/2008): NIH has identified three FOAs to pilot the transition from PureEdge to Adobe-based grant application forms, with deadlines in mid to late October: Immune Defense Mechanisms at the Mucosa RFA-AI-08-020 (R21), and Harnessing Inflammation for Reconstruction of Oral and Craniofacial Tissues RFA-DE-09-001 (R01) and RFA-DE-09-002 (R21).