Funding Opportunities

Letter of Intent (LOI) Announcement to Apply for the Research Scholar Program

Due Date: October 4^th, 2021

The Great Plains IDeA-CTR Network is pleased to announce that funding through an NIH/NIGMS grant is available to support four faculty who are in the early stages of their career.

We are requesting a Letter of Intent (maximum of two pages), to include: 1) project title, 2) principal investigator and mentor(s), 3) participating institution(s), 4) study aims, 5) hypothesis, 6) methods (brief overview of design, sample, measures, statistical analysis plan), and 7) a statement addressing how the project advances clinical and translational research. Also, include a specific paragraph listing your training needs to support your research program.

Up to 10 applicants will be invited to submit a full application. Those invited will be notified the week of October 25^th, 2021. The RFA and requirements for invitees are attached to this email. Please email your LOI, your NIH biosketch, and you primary mentors biosketch as a single PDF document to the Great Plains IDeA-CTR Office at gpctr@unmc.edu.

Solicited applications will be due: November 22^nd, 2021

The goal of this program is to develop successful clinical translational research (CTR) investigators by providing scholars with the protected time and seed grant funding to develop competitive CTR R01, K, or equivalent funding within 3-4 years. Scholars accepted into the program will receive salary support of up to 50% FTE (25% supported by NIGMS and 25% supported by the applicant’s institution, including fringe benefits consistent with the applicant’s institution) as well as up to $25,000 annually to support preliminary research efforts for up to four years.

All faculty in the Great Plains IDeA-CTR network are welcome to participate. This includes: Boys Town National Research Hospital (BTNRH), Children’s Hospital and Medical Center (CHMC), Creighton University (CU), Omaha VA Medical Center (O-VAMC), University of Kearney (UNK), University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) and University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).

Priority will be given to research addressing the following areas: 1) mental and behavioral health including mental health, substance abuse (e.g., opioids and alcohol), 2) obesity across the lifespan, 3) aging and age-related cognitive impairment, 4) injury prevention, 5) telehealth and innovative technology to improve health access to rural and underserved populations, 6) connecting clinical care and community services (e.g., schools, food banks, YMCA’s), 7) addressing health disparities based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and geography, 8) addressing health disparities based on food insecurity, economic instability, education access and quality, health care access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, social and community context. In addition, consider the impact your project will have on the community.

                                                       For questions and additional information, please contact Heather Braddock at heather.braddock@unmc.edu or 402-552-9870. For more details see the full RFA that will be provided to 10 invited applicants (click here).

The Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine, a Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE), is soliciting applications for vouchers to be used to access core facilities supported by the Center.

The goals of this voucher program are to encourage and support usage of the various imaging modalities and nanomaterial characterization methods by investigators for projects to help acquire preliminary data for external grant applications that would use the core facilities and to promote utilization of imaging methods in their research by users who are new to the technology.

Funding: Vouchers in amounts up to $5,000 per project will be made on a competitive basis. Funds can be used across the Cores supported by the Center and must be billed by May 31, 2022.

Eligibility: Any faculty members holding tenure-leading appointments.

Deadline: Proposals must be submitted by July 1, 2021 as pdf files via email to Tammy Slachetka (tammy.slachetka@unmc.edu)

For more information:

• Download the Voucher RFA
• Contact Tammy Slachetka (tammy.slachetka@unmc.edu)

Deadline: 5:00 PM on Monday, July 12, 2021

Eligible: Applications are accepted from graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from CoNDA participating institutions (UNMC, UNO, Creighton & Boystown).

The CONDA Center is pleased to announce a funding opportunity for mini-grants (one-year for $5000). The CONDA Center is an NIH/NIGMS supported  Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) that focuses on the cognitive neuroscience across the lifespan  and strives to support and develop neuroscience research in the region.

Research must fall into one of the following CoNDA Center priority areas:

• Studies of neurodevelopmental disorders including Down Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Studies of Alzheimer’s disease or other neurodegenerative diseases
• Multidisciplinary studies of aging and factors that lead to pathological (vs healthy) aging
• Neural mechanisms of psychiatric disease and/or psychiatric symptoms in other diseases
• Studies examining the impact of stress on brain structure and/or function in development and aging
• Studies examining the impact of environmental contaminants on systems-level brain health
• Studies of effects of altered brain activity (i.e., seizures) on the development of neurocognitive impairments
• Impact of neuroinflammation on brain structure and function across the lifespan
• Mechanisms and novel applications of brain stimulation
• Normative cognitive neuroscience and cognitive aging research

For more information, the RFA's webpage contains additional details.

Deadline: June 10, 2021 (extended, originally May 17th, 2021)

Award Amount: up to $20,000

The Nebraska Center for the Prevention of Obesity Diseases (NPOD) invites applications for its seed grant competition. The primary objective of this seed grant program is to stimulate research in the area of obesity research and/or signaling by nutrients or bioactive food compounds, and to enhance competitiveness in obtaining external support.

Details can be found here.

Questions may be addressed to Verona Skomski (402-472-3862) or Janos Zempleni

Deadline for Pre-Proposals:  5 PM, Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) infrastructure grant to Nebraska EPSCoR, the competitive FIRST Award grant program provides assistance to Nebraska's early-career, tenure-track faculty. The grants are designed to help early career faculty initiate their research programs and compete more effectively for NSF CAREER grants. Any project that could be supported by a National Science Foundation competitive research grant is eligible.

Approximately six FIRST Award grants are awarded each year; the awards are limited to $25,000 each and require a one-for-one match. An assistant professor in a tenure-leading position in any of the the colleges or universities in the state is eligible to submit a pre-proposal. The faculty member must be in his or her first four years of initial academic appointment at the time of submittal. Any project that potentially could be supported by a NSF competitive research grant is eligible.

Phase one of the application process involves the submission of a short pre-proposal that will be reviewed by a panel comprised of members of Nebraska's scientific community. Ten or fewer proposals are invited to advance to the final phase: the submission of a full, NSF CAREER-like proposal. Full proposals from these finalists will be evaluated using NSF proposal review criteria by external experts in the field. The Nebraska EPSCoR Committee will select FIRST Award recipients.

Grantees are required to submit a CAREER Award proposal to NSF within the next award period. Check Nebraska EPSCoR's Requests for Proposals page for submission details, PDF of instructions, and to submit a pre-proposal online.

Deadline: April 15 and October 15 annually

The University of Nebraska places a high value on its work in the area of diversity, striving to create a learning community of faculty, students and staff members with different cultural backgrounds. Creating this learning community includes recruiting and retaining excellent faculty and staff. The Faculty Diversity Fund represents a tangible commitment to achieving these goals and is targeted toward the recruitment and retention of diverse faculty in all academic units on the UNMC Campus. Measurable outcomes include increased faculty diversity across campus and successful professional development of these faculty.

Amount: $50,000/year for up to two years, restrictions apply

Eligibility is limited to the recruitment of potential new faculty or retention of current faculty members in UNMC Colleges and Institutes. The criteria for eligibility include BOTH of the following:

• Applicant/Nominee contributes diverse cultural experiences, background or special talents that lead to a richer and more diverse campus environment that can be evaluated on an individual basis 
• Applicant/Nominee must demonstrate a track record of commitment to the service of underserved communities and/or patients

The goal of these funds is to hire or retain diverse faculty at UNMC. This funding is for faculty development and research and not for salary support, to compensate for revenue losses, or replace other funding. It is expected that the college or departmental funds that are released as a result of the receipt of a diversity award will be re-invested in the faculty member’s research or other scholarly activity as a means of advancing his/her professional development.

Completed applications should be submitted to Dr. Gary C. Yee, Associate Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs.  Read guidelines here.

Deadline: April 30, 2021

The Translational Hearing Center is an NIH/NIGMS-funded Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) committed to developing a cadre of translational auditory/vestibular research scientists
developing biomedical and ototherapeutic solutions that preserve or restore hearing and vestibular function.

The Center has 2 specialized Research Cores, the Auditory & Vestibular Technology Core, and the Drug Discovery & Delivery Core, to assist PIs in meeting their research goals. Four 1-year Pilot Project research awards are available and described below, with the earliest possible start date of September 1st, 2021.

Pilot Project awards ($50k) are available to support junior faculty investigators to acquire compelling pilot data to successfully compete for an upcoming CoBRE-funded Replacement Project Leader slot or external federal funding (e.g., R series or K series from NIH). Meritorious proposals will fit the Center’s theme, i.e., mechanistically elucidate an etiology underlying hearing loss, or identify/validate candidate compounds that preserves or restores hearing.

Eligibility: Research-, clinical- or tenure-track faculty without a history of R01-level funding (i.e., >$210,000 direct cost per year from a single entity) or prior CoBRE funding. Applicants will be located at Creighton University, Boys Town National Research Hospital or University of Nebraska Medical Center and eligible to compete for RPL slots or independent R01/R21 funding or K awards. Submission deadline is 4.30 pm Friday April 30th, 2021, with the earliest possible start date of September 1st, 2021.

Examples of research areas and complete submission instructions can be found here.

Project inquires can be addressed to Peter Steyger, PhD, Director of the Translational Hearing Center at petersteyger@creighton.edu, and proposal submission enquires to Jerrod Lawrence at jerrodlawrence@creighton.edu.

All Pilot Project proposals will be submitted as a single PDF file, with all the required elements (see attached) to Jerrod Lawrence at jerrodlawrence@creighton.edu. Notification of review outcomes will be made by June 25th, 2021. IRB and IACUC approvals are required within 28 days of notification of potential funding (i.e., July 23rd, 2021).

The Buffett Cancer Center is pleased to announce a new FPBCC bridge funding program intended to support the research of Cancer Center members who have received encouraging scores that fell below the funding threshold on recent cancer-focused grant applications. The purpose of this program is to support the efforts necessary to produce additional data for promising cancer research projects, in order to strengthen related proposal resubmissions to federal funding agencies. 

The Buffett Cancer Center is primarily seeking to support proposals submitted after February 2017 that fit within the following criteria:

• New (A0) applications that received priority scores outside of the granting agency's current pay line; or
• Grants that have been submitted for competitive renewal and received a competitive but non-fundable score within two years from the expiration of the current award.

Eligibility for bridge funding extends to all Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center Members who are applying for or renewing individual investigator awards, multi-investigator awards, center grants, and program project grants from federal funding agencies and/or nationally peer-reviewed organizations. Funding priority will be given to those who submitted applications to the NCI, followed by those with cancer-focused proposals submitted to other NIH institutes or other federal agencies. 

To be considered for this opportunity, please review the request for applications available at: https://unmc.edu/cancercenter/research/research-funding-opp.html. Applications must be prepared in accordance with the guidelines outlined in the RFA and submitted as a single, complete PDF to both Matt Winfrey (winfreym@unmc.edu) and Kelly Jordan (kjordan@unmc.edu). Proposals requesting bridge funding will be accepted on a rolling basis.

Catalog of DoD Funding Opportunities