NIGMS: MULTIDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE GRANTS
RELEASE DATE: November 26, 2003
NOTICE: NOT-GM-04-106
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
(http://www.nigms.nih.gov)
THIS NOTICE ADDRESSES THE FOLLOWING TOPICS:
o Purpose
o Background
o Meeting Objectives
o Mechanisms of Support
PURPOSE
The purpose of this notice is to encourage the submission of conference grant
(R13) and cooperative agreement (U13) applications seeking funding for the
support of new multidisciplinary scientific meetings, under the NIH Program
Announcement, "NIH Support For Conferences and Scientific Meetings,"
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-03-176.html. The
extraordinary scientific advances in the twentieth century largely were
limited to a single scientific discipline and resulted from the efforts of
individual scientists and their research groups. However, the complexity and
breadth of many of the most important scientific challenges for the future
will mandate a coordinated effort by teams of investigators representing many
disparate disciplines. Multidisciplinary, for the purposes of this
announcement, means broadly multidisciplinary, crossing the disciplines of
biological, physical, and/or computational sciences relevant to the mission
of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). Until now, it
has been difficult to forge relationships required to establish such
heterogeneous teams of scientists. NIGMS believes that supporting
multidisciplinary conferences will result in the interactions and networking
necessary to facilitate the development of multidisciplinary teams of the
future. Applications are sought particularly in areas of special interest to
NIGMS as described in this notice.
BACKGROUND
NIGMS has experienced an increased demand in recent years for new mechanisms
to support groups of investigators who wish to work as multidisciplinary
teams. As a result of meetings held in 1998 with representatives of the
scientific communities served by the Institute, the Large-Scale Collaborative
Project Awards (large glue grants,
http://www.nigms.nih.gov/funding/gluegrants.html) and the Collaborative
Project Grants (initially called Integrative and Collaborative Project
Awards, http://www.nigms.nih.gov/funding/cpg.html) initiatives were begun.
Several other NIGMS center-type initiatives have been announced that require
participation of investigators from different backgrounds (see Major
Initiatives on the NIGMS homepage at http://www.nigms.nih.gov/). In October
2002, NIGMS sponsored a meeting, titled Visions of the Future
(http://www.nigms.nih.gov/News/Reports/visions.htm), where a group of
distinguished scientific consultants were challenged to predict what the
research problems of the year 2010 would be. Again the need for enabling
interdisciplinary approaches was a theme. This has also been reflected at
the NIH level where the NIH Director has made Collaborative Approaches to
Research a theme of his Roadmap initiatives.
It is widely recognized that when investigators from different scientific
backgrounds interact such discussions often spontaneously ignite
interdisciplinary collaborations. It is also generally believed that
collaborations that arise from such mutual interests and benefit are the most
effective and long lasting. However, scientists most often attend meetings
that deal with their own discipline, subdiscipline, or specialty. Thus,
opportunities for interactions with colleagues from different areas
(especially when lines of biological, physical, and computational fields are
crossed) are more limited than is desirable. For example, there now exists
unprecedented opportunities for quantitative and computational scientists to
collaborate with their biological colleagues. Yet, these scientists do not
often attend the same professional meetings.
MEETING OBJECTIVES
The intent of this announcement is to encourage multidisciplinary meetings
where such meetings involve a combination of biological, physical, and
computational scientists.
Specific areas where NIGMS sees opportunities for productive interactions
include:
Biology of microorganisms/mathematical modeling
Genetic pathways and networks in development/mathematics and chemical
engineering
Synthetic organic chemistry/cell biology
Drug toxicology/computational biology
Trauma, burn, and perioperative injury/genomic science
Resources are often needed to catalyze these group meetings, such as, but not
limited to, support for meeting sites, outside speakers and tutorials, and
travel funds for junior scientists. It is the objective of the notice to
announce the interest of NIGMS in providing necessary support to stimulate
multidisciplinary meetings relevant to its mission.
MECHANISMS OF SUPPORT
NIGMS will utilize the R13 and U13 mechanisms for support of
multidisciplinary conferences. Guidelines and the application process is
detailed in the most recent Guide Announcement on "NIH Support for
Conferences and Scientific Meetings,"
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-03-176.html.