UPDATE: This position is now closed.

We’re seeking a highly qualified scientist to serve as a branch chief in our Division of Biophysics, Biomedical Technology, and Computational Biosciences (BBCB). Applicants should have interest and experience in the scientific areas managed by the Biophysics Branch. Position responsibilities include scientific and administrative planning, managing, and evaluating activities of the Branch; optimizing Branch procedures; and overseeing grant portfolio activities of Branch program directors. The branch chief will also manage a research grant portfolio and will work closely with the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and Biomedical Technology branch chiefs and the BBCB division director.

We’re pleased to announce the publication of notice NOT-GM-23-040 introducing a change in the institutional eligibility criteria for applications to our Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) Phase 1 (P20).

NIGMS continues to support a wide range of topics and investigators, maintaining a broad biomedical research portfolio. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, NIGMS received a congressional appropriation of $3,092,373,000. Consistent with the Institute’s mission, a large portion of these funds support investigator-initiated research project grants (RPGs) at institutions throughout the country. As part of its commitment to transparency, NIGMS publishes data on annual trends in its grant portfolios. In this post, we describe investigator-level trends for RPGs and review the trends associated with competing RPGs as well as those in the Institute’s Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program.

NIGMS Investigator-Level Trends for Research Grants

At NIGMS, we focus on supporting a broad group of investigators. As a result, we monitor two statistics that describe our investigator pool: the cumulative investigator rate and the number of funded early stage investigators (ESIs). The number of newly funded ESIs has notably increased over recent years, and continued support for ESIs is integral to the success of the biomedical research enterprise and is a priority for the Institute. Figure 1 illustrates the number of ESIs who received their first competing NIGMS R01-equivalent grants each year between FY 2013 and FY 2022. In FY 2022, NIGMS awarded R01-equivalent grants to 319 ESIs in total: 31 investigators received R01 awards, 268 investigators received R35 (MIRA) awards, and 20 investigators received NIH Director’s New Innovator Awards (DP2s). These data include DP2s (four awards) administered by NIGMS on behalf of the NIH Office of the Director. The number of funded ESI MIRAs in FY 2022 was the largest to date, and more than four times larger than in the program’s first year. Overall, the number of funded ESIs has risen almost every year since FY 2013, with the slight decrease in the number of awards between FY 2017 and FY 2018 due in part to the introduction of the MIRA program in FY 2016 and a temporary reduction in the built-up ESI applicant pool as more ESIs received funding.

UPDATE: The webinar videois now available.

We’re pleased to share the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for our biomedical technology optimization and dissemination (BTOD) centers (RM1) (PAR-23-110). The goals of the BTOD centers are to optimize state-of-the-art, NIGMS mission-relevant, late-stage technologies, and to disseminate these technologies to both experts and nonexperts in biomedical research for their broad use. A BTOD center may focus on optimizing a single technology or multiple integrated technologies. Community engagement activities should result in broad dissemination of the optimized technologies for the research community’s sustainable use.

UPDATE: The webinar video is now available along with a program website featuring FAQs.

As part of NIH’s UNITE initiative to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in biomedical research, we’re pleased to announce the release of the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO): Instrumentation Grant Program for Resource-Limited Institutions (RLI-S10) (PAR-23-138). The RLI-S10 program aims to enhance research capacity and educational opportunities at resource-limited institutions by providing funds to purchase modern, scientific instrumentation. Applications may propose purchase of instruments that support basic, translational, clinical, or biomedically related behavioral science. The instruments may be used in formal courses for teaching purposes as well as for research projects.

UPDATE: The webinar video is now available.

Are you preparing a grant application for the Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE) or the Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) T34 training programs? If so, please join our webinar to learn about the programs and application components. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask us questions:

Friday, April 14, 1:00-3:00 p.m. ET
Zoom meeting link
Join by phone
Meeting ID: 161 451 8141
Passcode: 562357

We’re pleased to announce the availability of administrative supplements to Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Networks for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR) (U54) grants to advance the use of electronic health records (EHR) for clinical and observational research (NOT-GM-23-035). Applications are due May 15.

Submissions may propose activities in one or more of the following areas:

We’re pleased to announce the availability of administrative supplements to Institutional Development Award (IDeA) grants for team science projects (NOT-GM-23-034). The supplements are intended for projects that bring together two or more investigators from IDeA states with different expertise to address complex basic, behavioral, clinical, and/or translational research questions through complementary approaches. The questions shouldn’t duplicate those that researchers are currently pursuing through the parent awards and should clearly benefit from the collective efforts of the collaboration.

Applications are due June 1, 2023.

NIGMS has long recognized the need for more hypothesis-driven research to test biomedical training, mentoring, and networking interventions to improve efficacy and replicability across career stages and at a range of institution types (learn more from our research on interventions program webpage). The Institute has also encouraged the use of evidence-informed practices to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of research education, training, and career development in its research training programs. An important element of our programs is the dissemination of the research findings to the biomedical and research training communities. We’re pleased to announce a new notice of special interest (NOSI) (NOT-GM-23-028) requesting applications for conferences focusing on evidence-informed interventions to enhance training, workforce development, and diversity in the biomedical research enterprise.

We’re pleased to announce a new notice of special interest (NOSI) (NOT-GM-23-031) associated with PAR-20-296, modules for enhancing biomedical research workforce training (R25). The NOSI requests applications to develop biomedical research training modules on one of the following topics:

• Wellness and resiliency: effectively providing individuals with the knowledge and skills to enhance their wellness, resiliency, and ultimate success during their research training.
• Structural racism and discrimination: addressing harassment, intimidation, and other forms of structural racism and discrimination to reduce disparities in recruitment, retention, and success and to promote access, inclusion, equity, and accessibility in the research training environment. Modules should focus on how to create optimized research training environments where all participants feel safe, respected, and supported.
• Safe research training environments: catalyzing a strong culture of responsibility and obligation to maintain high standards for physical, chemical, and biological safety.
• Program evaluation capacity: developing evaluation capacity by informing program directors and administrators about effective and practical approaches to evaluate biomedical research training programs at their institutions.