• Read about NIH’s new proposal forms for 2023 and NSF’s updated PAPPG (proposal preparation guide) for 2023.

• See which directorate NSF renamed.

• Learn why concluding sentences are vital in proposal writing.

• Check out upcoming departmental seminars and a workshop on reproducibility.

• Browse new NIH and NSF funding opportunities and UCI Seed Funding.

New NSF PAPPG for 2023

The National Science Foundation has released its updated Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG). This PAPPG (NSF 23-1) is effective for proposals submitted or due on or after January 30, 2023.

Significant changes include:

• References to Research.gov (given the transition away from FastLane)

• Inclusion of the Concept Outline as a new submission type

• References to the requirement to use SciENcv to prepare Biographical Sketches and Current and Pending Support documents, starting in October 2023

• New post-award sections on Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) requirements, Research Security, and Scientific Integrity

You can find a full list of changes here.

Reminder: New NIH FORMS-H for 2023

NIH applicants must use FORMS-H application packages for due dates on or after January 25, 2023, which are now available here. FORMS-G application packages are still in place for due dates on or before January 24, 2023.

The major change is inclusion of instructions for NIH’s upcoming Policy for Data Management and Sharing. You can find a full list of changes here.

Please notify BioSci Research Development and UCI Office of Research if NSF invites you to submit a full proposal to the ExpandAI program.

The Expanding AI Innovation through Capacity Building and Partnerships (ExpandAI) program and its submission process differs from that of other NSF programs. Proposers can submit a Concept Outline to NSF on a rolling basis. If NSF is interested in the concept, the proposer will be sent a formal invitation to submit a full proposal. The proposer will then have up to one year to submit the full application during one of the submission window dates. (There are submission dates quarterly over the next two years.) However, ExpandAI limits submissions to one per institution per window. Therefore, notifying us and the Office of Research will help with managing the limited submission aspect of the program.

NSF’s EHR Directorate Renamed

NSF announced changes to the names of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources and the Division of Human Resource Development. The directorate will now be known as the Directorate for STEM Education, or EDU, and the division will be known as the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM, or EES.

Use Concluding Sentences to Restate and Summarize a Main Point

In the last issue, we discussed the importance of using topic sentences. (Topic sentences act as signposts that tell reviewers what they’re about to read.) Concluding sentences, on the other hand, tell reviewers the main point of what they’ve just read. Why is that important?

Reading requires working memory, which allows us to briefly remember information so that we can use it in some way. Readers use working memory to integrate the meaning of nearby sentences. But there is a limit to working memory capacity. Without looking back at the previous section, do you remember what the first announcement of this issue was? If not, that’s because you reasonably assumed you wouldn’t need to hold on to that information to understand subsequent sections. Readers of a grant proposal, however, are aware of the text’s narrative structure and expect to integrate the meaning of preceding sentences and paragraphs.

Concluding sentences help compensate for the limitations of working memory. They restate the main point of the paragraph and may also synthesize ideas for the reviewers. You have the power to influence what ideas your reviewers zero in on. Tap into that power by using concluding sentences.

November

UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society

Callie Brazil (Digital Communications Manager, UCI Humanities) Regina Castleman (Marketing and Communications Manager, UCI BioSci)

351 Steinhaus Hall

Register here.

November

Developmental and Cell Biology Seminar Series

Zhipeng Meng; Assistant Professor; Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology; University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

4201 Natural Sciences II and Zoom (ID: 935 0482 6445; PW: 754037)

November

Focus on Evolution Seminar Series

Marcus Seldin; Assistant Professor; Biological Chemistry; University of California, Irvine

1114 Natural Sciences I and Zoom

November

Reproducibility for Everyone (R4E) Workshop

Ensuring Replication and Robustness of Your Scientific Work

Join R4E for a workshop that will provide tools and techniques to ensure reproducibility in scientific research. R4E is a community-led reproducibility education initiative, which helps to empower scientists and make them feel confident in sharing their research with the scientific community at-large.

Topics covered in the workshop include:

• Introduction to reproducibility in research

• Data management

• Electronic notebooks use and resources

• Protocol sharing

• An interactive drawing exercise on protocol sharing

• Reagent sharing

• Data sharing

• Data analysis & visualization

November

Developmental and Cell Biology Seminar Series

Thomas Schilling; Professor, Developmental and Cell Biology; University California, Irvine

4201 Natural Sciences II and Zoom (ID: 935 0482 6445; PW: 754037)

November

Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Seminar Series

Max Wilson; Assistant Professor; Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; University of California, Santa Barbara

1114 Natural Sciences I

November

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Seminar Series

Dr. Zakee Sabree; Associate Professor; Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology; Ohio State University

1114 Natural Sciences I and Zoom (ID: 954 8917 7481; PW: EEB2022)

NSF Reaffirms Commitment to Advancing Reproducibility and Replicability in Science

NSF is particularly interested in proposals addressing one or more of the following topics:

• Advancing the science of reproducibility and replicability: Understanding current practices around reproducibility and replicability, including ways to measure reproducibility and replicability, what reproduction and replication means in practice, the right degree of replicability to target, quantitative measures of progress to understand the effectiveness of interventions to improve reproducibility and replicability, and exploration of reasons why studies may fail to replicate.

• Research infrastructure for reproducibility and replicability: Developing and facilitating adoption of cyberinfrastructure tools and/or research methods that enable use of reproducible and replicable practices across one or more science and engineering communities.

• Educational efforts to build a scientific culture that supports reproducibility and replicability: Enabling training in science and engineering communities to identify and encourage best practices for reproducibility and replicability, providing community-building and institutional support, and supporting broad public outreach about rigor, reproducibility, and replicability in science.

If you are interested in submitting a proposal on one of these topics, please reach out to programs and program officers to discuss the fit of your ideas with existing funding opportunities.

NSF DBI Virtual Office Hours: Broadening Participation Programs

Join the Division of Biological Infrastructure Tuesday, November 15th, 12 PM – 1 PM PT for their monthly Virtual Office Hour. Program Officers will introduce programs focused on broadening participation, including Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates in Biological Sciences (RaMP), Research Coordination Networks for Undergraduate Biology Education (RCN-UBE), and Building Research Capacity of New Faculty in Biology (BRC-BIO), and discuss recent updates to the relevant solicitations. They will also provide tips on how to write great RaMP, RCN-UBE, and BRC-BIO proposals. It is an opportunity to raise questions and communicate directly with program officers in your field.

Please register in advance for the webinar.

UCI Limited Competition for NSF S-STEM

The main goal of the S-STEM program is to enable low-income students with academic ability, talent or potential to pursue successful careers in promising STEM fields. Ultimately, the S-STEM program seeks to increase the number of low-income students who graduate with a S-STEM eligible degree and contribute to the American innovation economy with their STEM knowledge. Recognizing that financial aid alone cannot increase retention and graduation in STEM, the program provides awards to institutions of higher education (IHEs) not only to fund scholarships, but also to adapt, implement, and study evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities that have been shown to be effective supporting recruitment, retention, transfer (if appropriate), student success, academic/career pathways, and graduation in STEM.

For details on UCI’s limited competition, please refer to the link in the subtitle. Selected candidates will be notified during the week of December 12, 2022.

UCI limited deadline: November 18, 2022

NSF deadline: February 20, 2023

NIH Development of Resources and Technologies for Enhancing Rigor, Reproducibility, and Translatability of Animal Models in Biomedical Research (R24 Clinical Trials Not Allowed)

The Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) encourages resource-related research grant applications aimed at developing broadly applicable technologies, tools, and resources for validating animal models and enhancing rigor, reproducibility, and translatability of animal research. Proposed studies, models, resources, or technologies submitted under this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) must either address research interests of multiple NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs), explore multiple organ systems, or be applicable to diseases and processes that impact multiple organ systems in order to align with ORIP’s NIH-wide mission and programs. Applications should aim to enhance the rigor, reproducibility, and translatability of animal research through the development of technologies, tools, and resources that have significant impact across a broad range of research areas using animal models. Applications must demonstrate how the proposed resources and technologies impact rigor and reproducibility of animal studies. Applications for developing a limited quantity of resources are not suitable for this FOA.

Upcoming deadlines: December 22, 2022; February 24, 2023; May 25, 2023

2022-23 UCI Research Seed Funding Program

This program aims to invest in promising research directions where internal seed level investment can lead to externally funded “center-scale” research programs. The UCI strategic plan identifies convergence research as one of the keys to achieving the vision of research growth that makes a difference. Here, convergence refers to deep integration of knowledge bases, tools, techniques, and ways of thinking from physical sciences, life sciences, engineering, computing, and social sciences, and reaching out to humanities, arts, business and law to address major societal challenges.

Accordingly, seed funding proposals are invited from multidisciplinary teams that can compete for extramural funding. Please note that the Seed Funding Program is not intended to serve as a funding mechanism for internal UCI-based centers.

For more information and application instructions, please visit the website linked in the subtitle.

Deadline: January 13, 2023

NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Directorate for STEM Education (IUSE: EDU)

IUSE: EDU is a core NSF STEM education program that promotes novel, creative, and transformative approaches to generating and using new knowledge about STEM teaching and learning to improve STEM education for undergraduate students. NSF places high value on educating students to be leaders and innovators in emerging and rapidly changing STEM fields as well as educating a scientifically literate public. In pursuit of this goal, IUSE: EDU supports projects that seek to bring recent advances in STEM knowledge into undergraduate education, that adapt, improve, and incorporate evidence-based practices into STEM teaching and learning, and that lay the groundwork for institutional improvement in STEM education. In addition to innovative work at the frontier of STEM education, this program encourages replication of research studies at different types of institutions and with different student bodies to produce deeper knowledge about the effectiveness and transferability of findings.

Deadlines: January 18, 2023; July 19, 2023; third Wednesday in July, annually thereafter

Help us to generate information for the Research Bulletin.

Submit details about seminars and other research-related events on campus here. 

Submit funding opportunity announcements here.

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If you’re a faculty member, postdoc, graduate student, or other researcher in the School of Biological Sciences and would like help with a grant submission, please email bio-research@uci.edu.

To let the Pre-Award team know of your planned proposal submission, please fill out this form at least four weeks before the deadline.