Internal Deadline:  April 24, 2019

Program Summary & Background

In 2008, the Nebraska State Legislature adopted the Stem Cell Research Act (LB 606), which established a Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee to facilitate the awarding of grants to Nebraska institutions or researchers for conducting stem cell research that does not use human embryonic stem cells. 

UNMC is allowed to submit five applications to NE DHHS so Principal Investigators (PI’s) who are interested in submitting applications must first participate in UNMC’s internal screening process by submitting a one-page project description and biosketch.  A total of approximately $436,500 is available for the 2019 competition.

UNMC Internal Review Process

Applicants must email the following to Deborah Hawkins at deb.hawkins@unmc.edu by April 24th:

• One page project description in PDF format
• Biosketch in PDF format

An internal review committee will evaluate the project descriptions based on the selection criteria in the linked RFA and invite five investigators to submit full applications to NE DHHS.  Based on previous reviews of the full applications, it is recommended that special emphasis be placed on the translational merits of the proposed projects.  Thus, the internal review committee will be asked to evaluate the therapeutic potential associated with each proposed project, in addition to the “Selection Criteria” indicated in the RFA.   

Award

Up to $110,000 for a 12 month period (July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020)

• Indirect cost requests are not allowed
• Salary support for the PI, doctoral level co-investigators, and administrative or clerical assistance is unallowable

Eligibility

• A proposal may not be an extension of a project previously funded by LB606; it should be substantially different enough to be clearly a new project
• Renewals of existing projects are not allowed
• There is no prohibition for a current grantee to apply for the new RFA

2019 Timeline

Wednesday, April 24……..One-page Project Description & Biosketch (PDF only) due to Deb Hawkins (deb.hawkins@unmc.edu)

Wednesday, May 1………Five (5) UNMC Applicants announced by Review Committee   

Wednesday, May 15……..Full applications due to SPAdmin by 5:00 pm to allow for processing                                                               
Monday, May 20………….Signed applications submitted to NE DHHS by SPAdmin via PDF

Late June……………..........Selection of awards by NE DHHS

July 1………………..……….Grant period begins  

For more information:

• Click here for the Stem Cell Research Project 2019 RFA (click here for the Word version)
• UNMC Internal Screening: contact Dr. Ken Bayles at kbayles@unmc.edu or 9-4945
• Contact your Sponsored Programs Grants & Contracts Specialist

Deadline:  July 8, 2019

Nebraska will submit its next Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) grant proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) in July 2020. The RII grant is a joint investment of the state, participating universities, and NSF. The funding period for this $20 million grant, if funded, will be August 1, 2021, to July 31, 2026. This five-year grant will assist Nebraska EPSCoR in fulfilling its mission of enhancing the state’s research competitiveness while broadening the diversity and participation of underrepresented groups. 

In preparation for this planned RII grant submission, Nebraska EPSCoR seeks pre-proposals for research clusters from faculty groups in Nebraska research institutions that could become one of two possible research components of the next Nebraska RII grant proposal. A proposed research cluster must be congruent with at least one of NSF’s ten big ideas. NSF's 10 Big Ideas web site will provide more information about these. 

A pre-proposal must be multi-institutional and focus on a research “cluster” that has an integrated scientific theme. The research team must be led by a senior faculty member at one of Nebraska’s research universities and the team must position itself to submit at least one large grant proposal to the NSF no later than the third year of the RII grant. The cluster team members may include out-of-state researchers but no EPSCoR funds may be spent for their activities. 

Nebraska EPSCoR encourages partnerships and alliances with Nebraska research and/or technology-based businesses to increase the competitiveness of the state’s science and technology talent in competition for federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants.

Selection process: Pre-proposals will be evaluated on their scientific merits by a grant subcommittee of experts. Nebraska’s State EPSCoR Committee, by considering the recommendations of the grant subcommittee, will select the research components of the new RII proposal. 

Evaluation criteria: Pre-proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria: 

1. How important is the proposed activity to advancing knowledge and understanding within its own field and across different fields? 
2. To what extent does the proposed activity suggest and explore creative and original concepts? 
3. How well-qualified is the cluster team to conduct the project?
4. What is the potential of the cluster team in obtaining a major NSF grant within three years of the proposed project’s start date?
5. What is the potential economic impact of the proposed research (patents, partnership with current state companies, spin-off companies)?

Download the RFA for full description including eligibility requirements, funding limits, and required forms.

The Great Plains IDeA-CTR is soliciting applications from clinical and translational researchers for vouchers to be used to access core facilities and/or fee-for-service resources to augment their current research, or to prepare pilot data for research applications. Applications for vouchers will require an abstract of the proposed project, information on the relevance of the request to the project, and a detailed budget. Awards are anticipated to range between $4,000 and $10,000 per application. A total of approximately $20,000 will be granted to investigators for this fiscal year which ends on June 30, 2019.

Deadlines

Due February 4, 2019; Review: February 5, 2019

Due March 4, 2019; Review: March 5, 2019

Due April 1, 2019; Review: April 2, 2019

Due May 6, 2018; Review: May 7, 2019

Eligibility

Full-time faculty members from UNMC, UNL, UNK, UNO, Boys Town National Research Hospital, University of South Dakota, University of North Dakota or North Dakota State University may apply. The funds cannot be used to replace costs included in existing grants, and proposals must indicate how the results will be used to support new grant applications. The application form is attached. All applications must also be signed by the core director/service provider to indicate that the protocol has been reviewed and/or usage is feasible. Applicants are also required to submit a current NIH biosketch, a description of the relevance of the project to clinical and translational research and a description of the project that includes methods, measures and outcomes (maximum 2 pages). As part of the outcome, information on sustainability of the research (e.g. support of grant submissions, please indicate type and agency) is expected.

All funds must be expended by June 30, 2019.

Post Award Reporting: The PI will be required to submit a brief impact report by June 30, 2019, to include information on core facility use and grants/publications submitted, and general impact of the project on the PI’s research. These grants/publications must acknowledge support from the Great Plains IDeA-CTR (unless the award letter indicates funding from an alternate source or the grant application/publication does not allow such acknowledgements). Campus research offices will be responsible for providing any requested financial data; core facilities will report use-data in conjunction with their normal reporting cycle.

To apply, please click the request form.

For additional information contact:

Pamela Laws 
402-559-4749 
email

The Center for Neurosensory Systems, a Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) is soliciting applications for vouchers to be used to access core facilities and stimulate new research directions.  Applications can request up to $5,000 to fund projects in one of the core facilities supported by the COBRE. Faculty members from UNMC, Creighton University, or Boys Town National Research Hospital may apply.

Eligible Core Facilities:

Genomics, including DNA and RNA Sequencing (UNMC)

Mouse Genome Engineering (UNMC)

Tissue Science Facility (UNMC)

Integrated Biomedical Imaging Facility (Creighton University)

Auditory Physiology (Creighton and Boys Town) Contact Dr. David He, davidhe@creighton.edu for ABR and DPOAE measurements on mice. Testing for Creighton researchers will be at Creighton, and testing for BTNRH and UNMC researchers will be at BTNRH.

The funds cannot be used to replace costs included in existing grants, and proposals must indicate how the results will be used to support new grant applications.  Download the application form here.  All applications must also be signed by the core director to indicate that the protocol has been reviewed.

Applications will be reviewed monthly, and can be received by the following dates:

• March 6, 2019
• April 3, 2019
• May 1, 2019
• June 5, 2019

Funds must be billed by August 31^st, 2019.

We anticipate funding 4-5 vouchers.

For additional information please contact:

Shelley D. Smith, Ph.D. 
402-559-5314 
shelley.smith@unmc.edu

This grant program is aimed at encouraging new users to employ NU core facilities in their research. The program is open to all faculty from any of the NU campuses. Awards are intended to be used to gather new or additional data for strengthening a grant proposal (new or resubmission) or for addressing reviewer concerns associated with a peer-reviewed manuscript.

Eligibility: Any faculty member (Assistant, Associate or Full Professors and equivalent-rank researchers) employed by any University of Nebraska campus is eligible to submit funding applications if they (or students/staff within their research group) have not used a specific core facility (or new technology platform within a core) during the last two fiscal years (2016-2017, 2017-2018) and who require these services to generate data to support new/resubmitted grants or resubmitted/revised manuscripts. Existing core users that request the same technologies/services from other cores (for example, standard electron microscopy on a different campus) are not considered new users.

Application Process:  Applications must be submitted electronically via grants-awards.nebraska.edu. Download RFA information, including restrictions, reporting requirements, and detailed application instructions here.

Amount: The maximum request is $5,000 per core facility and a total of $9,000 per new user if more than one core facility is to be used. 

Deadline: Proposals will be reviewed quarterly during the first 3 quarters of the fiscal year (July/August, October/November, and January/February). Please allow 2 – 3 weeks for review and decision on the proposal. Note that funds must be used by June 30, 2019; no new award will be made after March 31, 2019. 

For more information about the campus cores on any campus or applications for this program, please contact your campus' research office.  (UNMC: Paula Turpen, email or 402-559-6162)

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

The Online Partnership to Accelerate Research (OnPAR) was conceived to re-accelerate the biomedical research and development enterprise by seeking a larger return on NIH's peer review investment on research proposals evaluated in the top 30% in each NIH Institute and Center.  The goal of OnPAR is to match quality biomedical research projects with priority areas of interest of private foundations, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies and/or other private biomedical research funders.

How to Apply

Leidos has worked with NIH Program Officers to inform applicant Principal Investigators that have scored well, but below the Institute/Center payline, about OnPAR. If an applicant scored in the top 30% and is not funded by NIH, he/she is welcome to submit an abstract for consideration. Qualified applicants are invited to register with OnPAR and participate in the submission and review process. It is not necessary to re-write an application. OnPAR will accept the NIH abstract that was submitted by the applicant, and if invited, his/her submitted NIH application and Summary Statement.

Read more about the application process and register for OnPAR

Deadline:  2019 CLOSED

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.

Supported Core Facilities

• Bioimaging (small animal MRI)
• Ultrasound/Photoacoustic Imaging
• Intravital Microscopy
• Nanomaterial Characterization

Description

Vouchers in amounts up to $5,000 per project will be made on a competitive basis. Funds must be billed by December 31st, 2019. These funds will not be allocated directly to the investigators’ laboratories but would instead be held in an account by the Core Facility to be expended as needed to subsidize usage fees for the Cores for the applicable projects.

Download the RFA for proposal requirements and eligibility.

Deadline for receipt of proposals:  March 1, 2019.  All applications must be submitted as pdf files via email to Tammy Slachetka (email).  Earliest possible date vouchers would be available: March 15, 2019.