Notices of Funding Opportunities

The goal of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity (K99/R00) program is to enhance workforce diversity in the neuroscience workforce and maintain a strong cohort of new and talented, NIH-supported, independent investigators from diverse backgrounds in BRAIN Initiative research areas. This program is designed to facilitate a timely transition of outstanding postdoctoral researchers with research and/or clinical doctorate degree from mentored, postdoctoral research positions to independent, tenure-track or equivalent faculty positions. The program will provide independent NIH research support during this transition to assist awardees in launching competitive, independent research careers.

The purpose of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity (K99/R00) program is to enhance workforce diversity in the neuroscience workforce and maintain a strong cohort of new and talented, NIH-supported, independent investigators from diverse backgrounds in BRAIN Initiative research areas. This program is designed to facilitate a timely transition of outstanding postdoctoral researchers with a research and/or clinical doctorate degree from mentored, postdoctoral research positions to independent, tenure-track or equivalent faculty positions. The program will provide independent NIH research support during this transition to assist awardees in launching competitive, independent research careers.

The purpose of the The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative Fellows (F32) program is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctorates, early in their postdoctoral training period, who have the potential to become productive investigators in research areas that will advance the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Applications are encouraged in any research area that is aligned with the BRAIN Initiative, including neuroethics. Applicants are expected to propose research training in an area that clearly complements their predoctoral research. Formal training in analytical tools appropriate for the proposed research is expected to be an integral component of the research training plan. In order to maximize the training potential of the F32 award, this program encourages applications from individuals who have not yet completed their terminal doctoral degree and who expect to do so within 12 months of the application due date. On the application due date, candidates may not have completed more than 12 months of postdoctoral training.

The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in the mission areas of the NIH. The overarching goal of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative R25 program is to support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nations biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs in research areas relevant to the BRAIN Initiative. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this FOA will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on Courses for Skills Development and Research Experiences. The purpose of this FOA is to encourage applications for the continuation and/or expansion of ongoing and new research education programs that will significantly advance the educational goals of the BRAIN Initiative as described in BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision including neuroethics and opportunities to increase the workforce diversity in BRAIN Initiative research areas. Proposed programs are expected to offer hands-on research experiences, an in-depth conceptual understanding of the techniques and tools employed, and the knowledge to apply appropriate analytic approaches to the resulting data. Participants are limited to undergraduate, graduate/medical students, medical residents, postdoctoral scholars, and/or early-career faculty with an emphasis on diversity as defined by NIH (NOT-OD-20-031). Proposed programs will facilitate the development of a sophisticated cadre of future investigators with the knowledge and skills to apply BRAIN Initiative techniques and approaches and data resources (BRAIN cell census data https://bicon.org/data) to research questions about brain function and behavior. Programs appropriate for this FOA must include participants from a regionally/nationally recruited cohort.

Reissue of RFA-NS-19-011: The purpose of the NIH Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award is to support a defined pathway across career stages for outstanding graduate students who are from backgrounds that are nationally underrepresented in neuroscience research. This two-phase award will facilitate completion of the doctoral dissertation and transition of talented graduate students to strong neuroscience research postdoctoral positions, and will provide career development opportunities relevant to their long-term career goal of becoming independent neuroscience researchers.