Friday, January 27, 2012

No soup for you!

NIH just released updated budget regulations for R13 and U13 conference grants. Essentially, you can no longer budget any food and beverage for conferences and meetings. Previously-awarded grants will not be impacted by this new policy. There are also new regulations regarding promotional items. Read these updated rules if you are applying for an R13 or U13 so you won't be stuck paying the Subway bill!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

NIH Early Independence Award Scientists

If you are curious who won the NIH Early Independence Awards in 2011, here is a video for you:

Know the rules on financial conflict of interest

In 2011, NIH updated its guidelines on financial conflict of interest. Most likely, your institution has some type of required process that includes questions related to conflict of interest. Rather than annual blanket forms, most universities have now transitioned to requiring a new conflict of interest declaration for each submitted proposal or funded project. FAQs regarding the policy can be viewed here.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Researchers get hungry too

Perhaps it is due to a culture of pharmaceutical and medical products companies that provide lunch and dinner during meetings and learning sessions, but I have noticed that most physician researchers are appalled when I inform them that they can't budget food on their NIH grant applications. Yes, in some cases, food can be budgeted. For example, if your study requires that you have food or snacks available for participants, you may be able to purchase food from grant funds. However, it appears that physicians are not capable of attending meetings that fail to include meals.

Let me make this abundantly clear: If you are budgeting for group planning meetings in which your research team will be getting together to discuss project progress or analyze preliminary data, you need to find a way to do it without Panera, or pay for your own lunch. NIH does not want to divert funds from cancer research to pay for your turkey on wheat. And don't even think of sending your bar tab from the Cheesecake Factory to your grants department for reimbursement. Alcohol is not a reimbursable expense, even if you were drinking wine with Jesus. No trick or explanation will get you around this rule.

Monday, January 9, 2012

FemaleScienceProfessor: Your Research is Systematic and Penetrating

If you are currently recruiting graduate students, please go easy on the ones who send you a variation of this cover letter: FemaleScienceProfessor: Your Research is Systematic and Penetrating. It appears that this may be posted as a template on some sort of website for international graduate students. Yes, it is terrible, but please remember - someone is telling them that this is the template they should be using. Enjoy!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

A reminder about submitting on time

In an NIH post, view a reminder and potential nightmare scenario in The Dangers in Delay. As I have said time and time again - do not wait until last minute to submit your proposal! Many unforeseen issues can occur, and waiting until last minute to submit could result in rejection of your application- meaning that you have wasted your time putting the proposal together and must wait for another deadline to submit.