The Gates Foundation has announced new opportunities for grand challenges and grand challenge explorations for researchers studying malaria control, maternal nutrition, and smart farming innovations for small-scale producers.  The deadlines for these programs are December 2, 2020; January 6, 2021; and February 25, 2021. Each is listed below in separate funding announcements. As always, be sure to reach out to CSDE if you would like support with your application.

The NIH and NSF recently announced two new exciting grant opportunities. NIH’s  “Interventions to Reduce the Impact of COVID-19 on Health Disparity and Other Vulnerable Populations” will support projects related to COVID-19 mitigation strategies in the United States. Projects must include a focus on one or more NIH-designated populations that experience health disparities in the United States, or a population identified as vulnerable to COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, or mortality. The grant will support a maximum budget of $250,000 per year. Project proposals should be submitted no later than December 15, 2020.

NSF’s Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations (AccelNet) grant will support development of networks to share information and ideas, coordinate ongoing or planned research activities, foster synthesis and integration through new collaborations on theory building and innovative development of methods and tools. The grants will support 10 -14 projects with a total budget of $10 million. Project proposals should be submitted no later than January 4, 2021.

If you’re considering these funding opportunities, please consider filling out a proposal planning form and you will receive high quality and timely pre-award support for your application from our team!

UW’s Office of Research invites letters of intent for NIA’s MD-PhD Training Program in Alzheimer’s Disease and Its Related Dementias and the Behavioral and Social Sciences. The program is designed to help strengthen the pipeline of physician-scientist leaders dedicated to using social and behavioral science approaches to addressing the nation’s challenges posed by Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementias (AD/ADRD). If you are interested, you should send a one page set of specific aims and your C.V. to research@uw.edu by November 19.  The call is due to NIA  2/3/21, so you will need to have your materials in to the Office of Sponsored Programs by 1/25/21 for processing, if you are given the go ahead by the Proposal Review Committee.

This FOA provides support to eligible domestic institutions to develop and implement effective approaches to integrated dual-degree training leading to the award of both an MD and a research doctorate degree (PhD or equivalent). This FOA invites applications from institutions with externally funded grants in the social/behavioral sciences that are relevant to the research topics proposed under this FOA. Fields of graduate training that are responsive to this FOA are economics, health economics, health services research, public policy, healthcare policy, social work, demography, sociology, social epidemiology, and psychology. Integrated medical and graduate research training programs may be built around single disciplines or may be multidisciplinary, may be flexible in structure, and should be consistent with individual institutional strengths. Proposed training programs should be flexible and adaptable in providing each trainee with the appropriate background in the social/behavioral sciences relevant to AD/ADRD research and clinical practice, yet be rigorous enough to enable graduates to function independently in both basic social/behavioral science research and clinical investigation.

The UW Statistical Consulting Service is now available for Fall quarter. Appointments will be held online via Zoom. Faculty and graduate students in the Consulting Program of the Department of Statistics offer free statistical advice to the UW community through scheduled 50-minute consulting appointments during the academic year when classes are in session. For more information and to schedule an appointment, click on the following link:

The consultants have experience primarily with the R statistical analysis system, but they work with clients using whatever statistical package is most convenient for them. (Note: Statistical consulting is for study design and data analysis advice, not software tutorials.) Clients should come to a consulting appointments prepared to provide background information and a clear statement of the scientific aims of their research prior to discussion of particular statistical issues, techniques or analyses.

They provide assistance with:

• the design of studies and experiments, including the preparation of grant proposals
• data visualization and presentation
• choice and application of statistical methods
• development of specialized statistical methods in some cases

About the Consulting Program: This program is a UW course for graduate students in the Department of Statistics. Through this course, students learn how to apply their statistical skills to a variety of real-world problems.  Most appointments will have three to four consultants in attendance: two to three student trainees and one faculty advisor. The program is organized around the academic calendar and the participating student consultants change every quarter. Because this is a training program, each consulting appointment has multiple goals. In addition to helping clients, student consultants are developing their consulting skills. Many problems brought to the consulting program require the consultants to research and discuss possible solutions with program colleagues following an appointment in order to determine the most appropriate statistical methods or guidance. In these cases, follow-up appointments are typically scheduled. While resources are limited, some assistance with actual data analyses can be provided on a case-by-case basis, depending on consultant availability, client needs, the size of the problem, and data analysis tasks.

Are you a graduate student who wants to communicate your capstone, research or pedagogy to a wider audience? Would you like to get feedback about your virtual presentation style from a group of supportive and interdisciplinary people? Then submit a proposal by Monday, October 26 for an opportunity to present at the virtual Scholars’ Studio—a fun, low stakes way to give a 5 minute lightning talk! This virtual event on Thursday, November 19 is a collaboration between the UW Libraries Research Commons and Core Programs—Office of Graduate Student Affairs in The Graduate School. Send questions to mundtm@uw.edu.