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," 
http://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," 
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-03-176.html.

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