National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Career Opportunities in Research (COR) Honors Undergraduate Research Training Grant

The purpose of this pre-baccalaureate research training program is to help ensure that a diverse and highly trained workforce is available to assume leadership roles related to the Nation’s mental health research agenda. Diverse populations refer to: individuals from a particular ethnic or racial group that has been determined by the grantee institution to be underrepresented in biomedical, neuroscience, behavioral, or clinical research; individuals with disabilities; and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The NIH recognizes a unique and compelling need to promote diversity in the biomedical, behavioral, clinical and social sciences workforce. The NIH expects efforts to diversify the workforce to lead to the recruitment of the most talented researchers from all groups; to improve the quality of the educational and training environment; to balance and broaden the perspective in setting research priorities; to improve the ability to recruit subjects from diverse backgrounds into clinical research protocols; and to improve the Nation’s capacity to address and eliminate health disparities.

Amount: Varies

Date due: May 12, 2010

For more information, click here.

Ford Foundation Research on Sexuality and Youth

The Ford Foundation has announced a new Request for Proposals entitled "Sexuality, Health, and Rights Among Youth in the United States: Transforming Public Policy and Public Understanding Through Social Research" designed to support and prepare researchers to take on the challenges of social science sexuality research in the 21st century. The overall goal of the program is to strengthen the capacity of social science researchers to inform public policy and public understanding of sexuality-related issues from a human rights perspective.

Amount: $500,000 (across 2 - 3 years)

Date due: February 1, 2010

Through this RFP the foundation will support research projects that combine three areas of activity: social science research; training of graduate students; and strategic communications to inform public policy or public conversations. Each project must include plans for all three areas of activity. Proposals that explore the role of structural inequalities, stigma and discrimination, and mechanisms of social exclusion related to gender, sexual orientation, class, race and ethnicity, and their intersections are of particular interest, as are proposals exploring how youth and adults in local communities seek to understand and address sexuality, health, and human rights through a range of individual and collective actions. All proposals must demonstrate how they would inform public policy or public dialogue on targeted sexuality or reproductive health and rights issues.

For more information, click here.

Decision, Risk & Management Sciences

The Decision, Risk and Management Sciences program supports scientific research directed at increasing the understanding and effectiveness of decision making by individuals, groups, organizations, and society. Disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, doctoral dissertation research, and workshops are funded in the areas of judgment and decision making; decision analysis and decision aids; risk analysis, perception, and communication; societal and public policy decision making; management science and organizational design.

Date due: January 18, 2010

Funded research must be grounded in theory and generalizable.

For more information, click here.

Bringing Theory to Practice Research & Program Grants

The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) has released new RFPs for the 2010 - 2012 grant cycle. Proposals are requested for projects during 2010-2012 that address one of the two following emphases: 1) Institutional efforts to examine, learn from and to make sustainable initiatives that foster the gains from the relationship between college students’ civic development and their psychosocial well-being; and 2) institutional ability to demonstrate the evaluation and sustainability of initiatives that address the increasing opportunities for students to have transformative educational experiences and for institutions to transform priorities and practices so as to make such experiences both expected and provided.

Amount: $10,000

Date due: March 1, 2010; June 1, 2010

Program or Research Initiative grants up to $10,000 are available to institutions proposing to establish or extend a program or research initiative that complements the purposes of BTtoP.

For more information, click here.

Bringing Theory to Practice Mini-Grants & Student Programming Grants

The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AACU) has released new RFPs for the 2010 - 2012 grant cycle. Proposals are requested for projects during 2010-2012 that address one of the two following emphases: 1) Institutional efforts to examine, learn from and to make sustainable initiatives that foster the gains from the relationship between college students’ civic development and their psychosocial well-being; and 2) institutional ability to demonstrate the evaluation and sustainability of initiatives that address the increasing opportunities for students to have transformative educational experiences and for institutions to transform priorities and practices so as to make such experiences both expected and provided.

Amount: $2,500

Date due: Rolling basis after 01/01/10.

Mini-grants up to $2,500 are available to institutions initiating, or extending, conversations on their

campus that lead to the planning, implementation, or assessment of program or research projects directly related to the objectives of BTtoP and to either of the emphases for the 2010-2012 period.

Student programming grants are available under the Mini-grant category. These grants are available to student-led organizations or initiatives to develop programs for and by students that are consistent with the objectives of BTtoP.

For more information, click here.

SAMHSA Knowledge Dissemination Conference Grants

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announces SAMHSA’s Knowledge Dissemination Conference Grants program (also referred to as SAMHSA Conference Grants). The purpose of the Conference Grant program is to disseminate knowledge about practices within the mental health services and substance abuse prevention and treatment fields and to integrate that knowledge into real-world practice as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Amount: $50,000

Date due: March 2009

Only direct costs will be funded under this program. Not all SAMHSA’s Centers will be awarding Conference Grants in any given year. Please visit the SAMHSA Web site at www.samhsa.gov to learn which Centers are providing funding and the number and size of awards for any specific year.

For more information, click here.

Role of Human-Animal Interaction in Child Health & Development

The purpose of this grant is to build an empirical research base on how children perceive, relate to and think about animals; how pets in the home impact children's social and emotional development and health (e.g. allergies, the immune system, asthma, mitigation of obesity); and whether and under what conditions therapeutic uses of animals is safe and effective.

Amount: $50,000 (R03 -- Small Research Grant Awards); $500,000 (R01 -- Large Grant Awards)

Due: November 19, 2009

Projects should be theoretically based and seek to answer questions that address key developmental, health and safety issues regarding the interactions of children and youth with animals in the home or therapeutic settings. Research to identify biobehavioral markers also is encouraged. Such work could not only inform the field about traits that make particular animals more suitable for interaction with individuals in certain settings, but could also be useful in identifying animal models of gene-behavior associations in humans. Physiologic measures (e.g. neuroendocrines, genetic, heart rate, neuroimaging), as well as direct or observational measures of behavioral, cognitive, psychosocial, and/or psychoeducational outcomes are encouraged.

For more information on the R03 competition, click here. For more information on the R01 competition, click here.

Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

The National Science Foundation aims to ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the United States and to reinforce its diversity by offering approximately 1,654 graduate fellowships in this competition pending availability of funds. The Graduate Research Fellowship provides three years of support for graduate study leading to research-based master’s or doctoral degrees and is intended for students who are in the early stages of their graduate study.

Amount: Graduate Research Fellowship, $30,000; Tuition allowance, $10,500.

Due: November 2, 2009

NSF Fellows are expected to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering. These individuals will be crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation’s technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well being of society at large. The Graduate Research Fellowship Program is designed to provide opportunities for advanced education that prepares students for a broad range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary careers through its strategic investments in intellectual capital.

Applicable disciplines include chemistry, computer and information science, economics, engineering, geosciences, life sciences, mathematics, physics, psychology, and the social sciences.

For more information, click here.

Enduring Questions: Pilot Course Grant

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announces the availability of the Enduring Questions grant program supports a faculty member’s development of a new course that will foster intellectual community through the study of an enduring question. This course will encourage undergraduate students and a teacher to grapple with a fundamental question addressed by the humanities, and to join together in a deep and sustained program of reading in order to encounter influential thinkers over the centuries and into the present day.

Amount: $25,000

Due: September 15, 2009

An Enduring Questions grant supports the development of a new undergraduate humanities course that must be taught at least twice during the grant period. The grant supports the work of a faculty member in designing, preparing, and assessing the course. It may also be used for ancillary activities that enhance faculty-student intellectual community, such as visits to museums and artistic or cultural events. An Enduring Questions course may be taught by a faculty member from any department or discipline in the humanities or by a faculty member outside the humanities (e.g., astronomy, biology, economics, law, mathematics, medicine, psychology), so long as humanities sources are central to the course.

For more information, click here.