NSM Faculty/Staff Newsletter

From the Office of the Dean

Office of Research Update

New Proposal Submissions

In October, NSM faculty submitted 29 research proposals (including 8 to NSF, 2 to NASA, 12 NIH, 3 NOAA, and 1 to DoD) corresponding to $20.48M in requested funding.

Awarded Research Grants

Thamar Solorio (Computer Science) was awarded a $307,919 grant from NSF: “RI: Small: Robust Models for Sequence Labelling in Social Media Data.”

Internal Award Opportunities

UH HEALTH Research Institute’s Seed Funding

Deadline: Sunday, December 1, before 5 p.m.

The HEALTH Research Institute was created to address the health challenges faced by our communities by leveraging transdisciplinary team science to provide innovative, empirically-grounded, culturally-informed and community-embedded solutions. The goal is to become a model for advancing transdisciplinary health science through strong partnerships with communities, organizations, and other key stakeholders.

The purpose of the pilot research program is to strategically seed feasibility and proof of concept studies that will lead to the development of novel findings that address one or more health challenges faced by our local, state, or national communities.

This request for pilot project applications, new applications and resubmissions, is intended to expand the HEALTH Research Institute in the area of basic biomedical science. Basic biomedical science provides a transformative platform to discover novel pathological and pathophysiological mechanisms that could be rapidly translated into population-specific targets of prevention and treatment.

Application

Equipment Grants

Deadline: Monday, December 2, before 5 p.m. No late applications will be accepted.

The Provost and the Vice President for Research have initiated a program to invigorate the university research enterprise through targeted investment of Equipment Grants. The purpose of the program is to support research labs and groups with funds that would permit submission of competitive external research proposals. About 70% of the awards will be allocated for proposals in the four high priority areas (see details in the figure on Equipment Grants webpage). Another 30% will be for any relevant area selected by an investigator. Proposals will be considered in two categories: small equipment grants can range up to $50,000; large equipment grants can range from $50,000-250,000.

High Priority Area Research Seed Grants

Deadline: Monday, March 2, 2020, before 5 p.m. No late applications will be accepted.

The Provost and the Vice President for Research are continuing a program to invigorate the University’s research enterprise through targeted investment of seed research funds in high priority areas (see the examples in Figure 1 on High Priority Area Research Seed Grants webpage). The purpose of this program is to invigorate research labs and groups with funds that would permit submission of competitive research proposals. The seed funding grant program is closely tied to the four institutional thrusts that the Vice President for Research and the Provost developed in consultation with the college deans, and which the Chancellor has endorsed: (1) physical and cyber security, (2) drug discovery and development, (3) sustainable communities and infrastructure, and (4) accessible healthcare. Each of the thrusts is described in Figure 1, which provides the general area of emphasis and some examples. Formation of interdisciplinary research teams is encouraged to build capabilities to address these complex issues.

Upcoming Meetings and Workshops

November 20: Master the ICON System to Manage Your IRB
11 a.m.–1 p.m.
Faculty Cafe, E. Cullen, Ground Level, Rm. 31

Announcements

National Science Foundation Biosketches

Beginning in January 2020, NSF will only accept biosketches generated through an NSF-approved format. Currently, the only approved format is NIH’s SciENcv (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae). Please plan ahead and prepare your NSF biosketch now with SciENcv.

Read the NSF Biosketch Advisory

National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Submissions Portal

Beginning in early 2020, NSF will discontinue FastLane, and all proposals will need to be submitted through research.gov. In order to become familiar with the system and to troubleshoot errors, NSM will immediately begin using research.gov for all non-last-minute NSF submissions.