Funding Opportunity Number: PAR-24-200
Deadline: July 15, 2024
Description
The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research educational activities that complement other formal training programs in the mission areas of the NIH Institutes and Centers.
The overarching goal of this R25 program is to support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs.
To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this NOFO will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on:
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- Courses for Skills Development: For example, advanced courses in a specific discipline or research area, clinical procedures for research, or specialized research techniques.
- Research Experiences: For graduate, medical and other health professional students, as well as postdoctorates (may include junior faculty with continuing need of research training) : to provide immersive hands-on research experiences and related educational activities that requires a national program, includes participants drawn from a pool of prospective candidates recruited nationwide, includes a faculty drawn from national and potentially international experts, and would not be available on a local level or available through other formal NIH training mechanisms.
NINDS considers a limited number of targeted, outstanding research education programs to be invaluable to the furtherance of its mission. Educational programs in all areas of research (basic, clinical and translational) are eligible. Programs must provide a critical educational experience not already available at a local or national level. Moreover, programs should provide research education that could not be provided at a local level. These research education programs would be expected to bring together national and international leaders in a field, or multiple fields, to provide intellectual, technical, theoretical and practical knowledge to participants and thus promote the conduct of cutting-edge scientific inquiry. In general, programs should focus on advanced education in a field, which will allow participants to excel in their research endeavors. These research education programs might be narrowly focused on a specific research area, to provide a broad and deep understanding of, and practical experience required for, that specific research area. Alternatively, these programs may be applicable to many research areas, but focus on developing expertise in classes of new technologies, experimental and/or analytical approaches.
Regardless of focus, to be competitive, programs submitted to this NOFO must comply with the following:
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- Programs must center on immersive, practical, hands-on activities, integrated with activities to provide an understanding of theoretical aspects of the subject. Thus, the core of the course must involve “doing,” not simply listening. Lectures and/or discussion should be used to provide context, education and theoretical framework that guides the hands-on activities.
- Programs must include well-designed components that will instill in the participants a keen understanding of the principles of rigorous study design, data analysis and transparent reporting (see the NIH guidance on rigor and reproducibility in grant applications: https://grants.nih.gov/reproducibility/index.htm and related materials: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Current-Research/Trans-Agency-Activities/RigorAndReproducibility, as well as directly address scientific practices that help to avoid unconscious bias in experimentation, analysis and interpretation of data.
- Programs must include discussions on how to identify and navigate ethical issues and questions associated with the program’s neuroscience research and/or research education goals.
- Programs must be designed for, and available to, a national audience. Programs intended for a local or regional audience are not appropriate for this NOFO.
For more information, please see the funding opportunity webpage.