Science Education Awards from NIAID

A recent funding opportunity announcement from the NIH Guide caught my eye. PAR-11-086 is for “NIAID Science Education Awards (R25)”, the purpose of which is described as follows:

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) encourages applications from organizations that focus on the development of science education for K-12 students. It is expected that these education programs will provide outreach to a large audience of students at a national level, directly or through their teachers, using approaches where successes can be measured.

Emphasis added. Despite the fact that these R25 mechanism awards have been used by the NIH for a long time and did not even remotely imagine the use of currently available new media and internet technologies, there is an obvious fit. For my audience. For those of you who already use blogs or even YouTube or Facebook, to disseminate scientific information.

Upside in this particular announcement includes the use of standard receipt dates for the application (I’ve seen some NIH ICs that use a once-per-year, nonstandard receipt dates so check your IC’s announcements that use the R25 mechanism.) You may request up to $175,000 per year in direct costs and propose up to 5 years of support.

Are you listening yet, my friends?

There is one obvious trouble spot, since measuring the “success” (aka, any impact or influence on knowledge) of scientific blogging is not an easy task. Still, it isn’t as though this is a novel requirement or goal for websites and similar Internet based resources. There already exist ways to try to measure impact. And as you know, sometimes in the NIH grant writing game all that you need to do is provide nominal cover for favorably-disposed reviewers. You know those annoying polls that pop up on websites now and then? I seem to notice them at NIH websites with some frequency. Of course, I just close them but if this is the accepted way to monitor web impact, easy-peasy. Those who have prior experience doing brief post-seminar “evaluation” surveys can probably whip something up in SurveyMonkey or PollDaddy in a trice.

This particular FOA is directed at the K-12 primary and secondary school age groups. I’ll point out that not all FOAs that I’ve seen using the R25 mechanism are limited to this particular audience. So you may find something that fits better with an audience that is of most interest to you under another FOA.

Need ideas? Start with RePORTER to see what is currently funded by the NIH under the R25 mechanism (New Grants, Existing Grants).