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How one applies and has their proposal reviewed to gain a small share of the world's largest funding source for life science research is changing. The following highlights modifications affecting grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health for due dates on or after January 25, 2025, as posted on their Implementation of New Initiatives and Policies page.

As U.S. research institutions face funding uncertainty, countries and universities worldwide are launching initiatives to lure away our scientific talent:

As the federal R&D budget has grown, peer review committee compositions changed, and federal research awards have grown in size, the threshold to obtain the designation as a Carnegie R1 university of $50 million in total research spending to earn the designation was met by 42 additional universities for the first time, bringing the total to 187 nationwide.

In a recent State of the Science address, National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt called attention to what she sees as an alarming trend: the federal contribution to basic research is stagnating while industry funding is rising. The federal share of U.S. spending on basic research, she said, was down from about 60% in 2011 to 40% in 2021.

The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2024, signed in late December, ultimately contained fewer provisions related to research, technology, and entrepreneurship than the draft versions of the legislation initially proposed. Nonetheless, the final bill made some changes that could stabilize some of the department’s innovation activities in recent years and add some flexibility for companies and organizations engaging in technology transfer activities with defense institutions. Specifically, four sections worth noting in the FY 2024 NDAA are the following:

Earlier this week, the White House announced a series of actions being undertaken by federal agencies to focus on women’s health.  Both NIH and ARPA-H announced new funding opportunities centered around women’s health, while the White House and other agencies took action without indicating any funding associated with that funding

The National Science Foundation recently announced awarding more than $100 million to 18 teams at academic institutions across the nation through the Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program. An NSF press release states, “NSF's investment will enable academic institutions to accelerate the pace and scale of translational research that will grow the nation's economy.”

A recent announcement from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) included major updates requiring open access to federally funded research. The new guidance will require federal agencies to ensure that all taxpayer-funded research is immediately available to the public, disallowing the previous optional 12-month embargos.

There is an opportunity to turbocharge U.S. innovation by addressing barriers to collaboration between research universities and industry, according to Sheila Martin, vice president of economic development and community engagement at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU).

The Biden Administration issued an executive order earlier this week that provides guidance on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the U.S. The EO includes guidance for agencies to work to provide new opportunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs in AI and other directives.

The economies, the wellbeing, and the stories of the U.S. and China have become so intertwined and so interdependent that individuals not following global political-military-ideological studies might be excused for getting lost in the narrative, let alone following such a complex plot. There won’t be a simplifying explanation offered here, but there are a few new twists in the storyline SSTI wanted to share that may relate to the innovation investment, product development, and exit strategies for some parties within the TBED community. 

In 1862, during the Civil War, Congress passed the Land-Grant Agricultural and Mechanical College Act of 1862 (a.k.a. the Morrill Act of 1862). This legislation extended educational opportunities for many White working-class Americans. But it did little to extend education to Black people. The Morrill Act of 1890 passed 28 years later created new land grant institutions to address the issue of Black peoples’ access to higher education. But racial inequities between the two land-grant systems have persisted into the present day.

Over the last month, the Department of Energy (DOE), National Science Foundation (NSF), and National Institute of Standards and Technology 

NIST has released a plan to make its scientific data and publications more readily available and accessible, following a memo from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) instructing all government agencies to do so.

Despite Carnegie Classification as an R2 institution, Northern Illinois University (NIU) and other similar universities do not qualify for existing R&D capacity-building initiatives targeting Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) states or minority-serving institutions (MSIs).

New fiscal year (FY) 2021 Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) survey data released by the National Science Foundation (NSF) reveals a $3.4 billion (4%) increase in research and development (R&D) spending by institutions of higher education ($86.5 to $89.9 billion), driven almost entirely by a decades high federal government R&D funding increase of $3 billion.

NIH just launched the funding opportunity announcement for the third cohort of its regional biomedical proof-of-concept and accelerator program, the Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs. On Dec.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science recently announced new requirements for all research proposal applications. Applicants must submit a plan for Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research — or PIER Plan — with their research proposal during the solicitation process. The PIER Plans will be required beginning in FY 2023 and will require investigators to describe strategies to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in all research projects.

Recent findings from a study titled The Death of Downtown? Pandemic Recovery Trajectories across 62 North American Cities, conducted by a group of six researchers at the University of California’s Berkeley campus's Institute of Governmental Studies found that U.S.

The Convergence Accelerator, a program developed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to invest in research towards developing high-impact solutions for societal issues, requests topic ideas for the 2023 cohort in a Dear Colleague Letter Request for Information (DCL/RFI). This program follows a three-tiered process, including topic ideation and convergence research phases one and two.

In a move designed to strengthen southwest Pennsylvania’s role in life sciences research, the University of Pittsburgh and Richard King Mellon Foundation last month announced a $100 million gift to help fund a bioresearch and development facility.

Congress passed the bipartisan infrastructure framework, formally, the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, and President Joe Biden is expected to sign it the week of Nov. 15. While small as a percentage of the trillion-dollar total, there are a number of proposed items that can support regional innovation economies, with broadband being the highest funded.