The next batch of new ideas
As you may know, the National Advisory Council on Aging met here in Bethesda last week. Among the many actions it took was the review and approval of seven new concepts for NIA Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs). Although these are still in the concept phase, it’s likely—but by no means certain—that they will appear as FOAs in the NIH Guide before the end of this fiscal year.
What’s in and what’s not
You can find brief summaries of the cleared concepts on our website. Contact information for the NIA program staff involved with each concept is included. You will find that the award mechanism (R01, R21, or any of the 50 other mechanisms) or the funds allocated for a particular concept are not mentioned. Program staff cannot provide this information to you until the concept officially becomes an FOA. Award mechanisms and funding limits are determined when the FOAs are developed for publication in the NIH Guide.
We first posted the approved concepts for the Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias FOAs in October 2016. Our second group of approved concepts was posted following the Council meeting In January 2017. We’ve received positive feedback from the research community about this heads up about possible upcoming FOAs and intend to continue to post concepts cleared by Council.
What can you do with this information?
If your work currently focuses in one of the fields described in these concepts – or, it may be -- we suggest that you start thinking about how you would respond to a Program Announcement or Request for Applications on your topic. Do you have the facilities and people available to investigate this topic? If not, can you get them if needed? With committing a detailed plan to paper, you can brainstorm with your colleagues about how you would approach the topic.
And, finally, you can keep an eye on the NIH Guide. (In fact, you can subscribe to it!) Alternatively, you can regularly check the NIA Funding Opportunities page, which is linked to the Guide, but only mentions NIA-related FOAs.
We appreciate your feedback, so please let us know if this is helpful to you by contacting us or commenting below.