Build Capacity To Research Bioethical Issues Using Supplementary Funding

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Investigators who have an ongoing grant or cooperative agreement (“parent award”) and are interested in bioethics may want to check out the December 16, 2021 Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Administrative Supplement for Research and Capacity Building Efforts Related to Bioethical Issues (Admin Supp, Clinical Trial Optional).

You may propose to supplement parent awards focused on bioethics or add a component related to bioethics to a parent award in which bioethics was not the focus. Applications must be within the general scope of the parent award.

NIAID’s Areas of Interest

NIH seeks research on bioethical issues to develop an evidence base that may inform future policy directions (see the NOSI for examples), and each participating institute or center has its own areas of research interest.

For NIAID, studies should focus on ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) relevant to collaborative research on HIV/AIDS or its comorbidities, other infectious diseases including those transmitted by vectors, immunologic and allergic diseases, and organ transplantation; ethics of clinical trials and implementation science; and other ELSI issues relevant to the NIAID Mission.

You may include conceptual work in bioethics, or empirical work gathering and analyzing data relevant to ELSI issues in research, or a combination of the two. For empirical projects, your data collection can include quantitative or qualitative methods, or both.

NIAID is particularly interested in topics such as:

  • Policy issues at the intersections of public health surveillance, care delivery, and research
  • Issues within NIAID’s mission that are unique to child-bearing age and pregnant people
  • Best methods for securing highly sensitive data including genetic data; risks from data breaches and reidentification; effective tools for anonymizing such data; and stakeholders’ attitudes toward data sharing

For complete details, including a longer list of NIAID’s research areas of interest, read the NOSI. If you have questions, like whether your proposed research is appropriate to the NOSI, ask Joana Roe, NIAID’s scientific/research contact, at 240-627-3213 or joana.roe@nih.gov.

How To Apply

For this NOSI, you’ll apply through the related funding opportunity announcement Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp, Clinical Trial Optional).

There is no restriction on parent award eligibility based on activity code (e.g., R61/R33), although NIAID is more likely to supplement substantial awards, i.e., those activity codes not on NIH’s List of Smaller Grants and Awards. Be sure to identify the NOSI in your application by including “NOT-OD-22-026” in the Agency Routing Identifier field box (box 4B) of the SF 424 R&R form.

Limit your budget request to $100,000 in direct costs for one year of support.

The application due date is March 27, 2022, by 5:00 p.m. local time of the applicant organization.

Contact Us

Email us at deaweb@niaid.nih.gov for help navigating NIAID’s grant and contract policies and procedures.

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