The NIH BRAIN Initiative is pleased to offer a program of funding opportunities that supports teams of scientists who seek to cross boundaries of interdisciplinary collaboration to advance brain science. A synergistic team-based approach allows researchers with diverse expertise, perspectives, and ideas to work together to set and tackle innovative and challenging goals. Together, the team has an opportunity to transform neuroscience and enable significant advances in the field.
Additionally, by participating in team science, researchers will:
- Add distinct and diverse perspectives to improve the quality and value of the research
- Develop innovative conceptual frameworks, approaches, and technologies
- Build and strengthen a collaborative network of multidisciplinary researchers with similar scientific interests
- Build bridges for mentees
The NIH BRAIN Initiative is committed to building a diverse and inclusive neuroscience and biomedical research workforce. As scientific progress is best accelerated by leveraging a broad range of experiences, we actively encourage individuals with diverse perspectives to apply for team science opportunities. This includes investigators historically underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce (see NOT-OD-20-031), and investigators from different scientific disciplines, at varying career stages, and with varied skills, experience, and expertise.
“No single researcher or discovery will solve the brain’s mysteries. The most exciting approaches will bridge fields, linking experiment to theory, biology to engineering, tool development to experimental application, human neuroscience to non‐human models, and more, in innovative ways.”
Below is information about open notices of funding opportunities (FUNDING OPPORTUNITYs) that require a team science approach.
U01 Funding
The U01 funding mechanism promotes multidisciplinary team science. A team of investigators from different disciplines will collaborate to understand the contributions of dynamic circuit activity to a specific behavioral or neural system. This is a discrete, specific project, and projects are more commonly in the exploratory phase to prepare for larger or extended efforts like a BRAIN Circuits U19 or R01.
Now Accepting Applications: Exploratory Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - eTeamBCP (U01 – Clinical Trials Optional) [RFA-NS-22-028]
What is It?
- This opportunity (RFA-NS-22-028) supports interdisciplinary teams of three or more (up to six) Program Directors (PDs)/Principal Investigators (PIs) that seek to collaborate to understand the contributions of dynamic circuit activity to a specific behavioral or neural system.
- These studies, at the exploratory stage, are intended for the development of experimental capabilities and/or theoretical frameworks in preparation for a future competition for larger-scale or extended efforts, including the multi-component U19 (see below) or the BRAIN Targeted BCP (R01).
What Do I Need to Know to Apply?
- We actively encourage individuals with diverse perspectives to apply for this opportunity. Further, this funding opportunity requires a Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) as part of the application. Applicants are strongly encouraged to read the funding opportunity instructions carefully and view the available PEDP guidance material.
- The overall goal of this funding opportunity is to enable a large-scale analysis of neural systems and circuits within the context and during the simultaneous measurement of an ethologically relevant behavior.
- Toward this end, teams are expected to assemble and leverage multi-disciplinary expertise, and to integrate experimental with computational and theoretical approaches.
- Teams are expected to bridge fields by incorporating rich information on cell-types, on circuit functionality and connectivity, in conjunction with sophisticated analyses of an ethologically relevant behavior of an organism or a well-defined neural system.
- Teams are also expected to aim for a mechanistic understanding of the circuits of the central nervous system (CNS) by applying cutting-edge methods such as those for large-scale recording, manipulation, and analysis of neural circuits across multiple regions of the CNS.
What is the Project Budget?
Application budgets are not limited but should reflect actual project needs.
What is the Project Period?
The project period cannot exceed three years.
What Are the Key Application Dates?
- Posting date: March 2, 2022
- Open date: May 14, 2022
- Due dates: June 15, 2023; June 14, 2024 (by 5:00 p.m. local time of applicant)
Who Can I Contact with Questions?
Karen K. David, Ph.D.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Where Can I Find More Information?
More information, including a full description of the funding opportunity (Section I), award information (Section II), eligibility (Section III), application requirements (Section IV), and review criteria (Section V) are available in the announcement.
U19 Funding
The U19 funding mechanism is a collaborative multicomponent award. It allows a team of investigators to target their joint efforts to understand behavior and function at the level of dynamic circuits. A U19 may have multiple cores and/or sub-projects, and usually requires a multidisciplinary approach. A U19 application should describe a research program of projects and cores that, by necessity, must be done collectively to be optimally successful.
Now Accepting Applications: Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - Team BCP (U19) [RFA-NS-22-040 and RFA-NS-22-039]
What is It?
- This opportunity (RFA-NS-22-040; RFA-NS-22-039 for BESH) supports integrated, interdisciplinary research teams that focus on examining dynamic circuit functions related to behavior, using advanced and innovative technologies.
What Do I Need to Know to Apply?
- We actively encourage individuals with diverse perspectives to apply for this opportunity. Further, this funding opportunity requires a Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) as part of the application. Applicants are strongly encouraged to read the funding opportunity instructions carefully and view the available PEDP guidance material.
- Applications should focus on overarching principles of circuit function in the context of specific neural systems underlying sensation, perception, emotion, motivation, cognition, decision-making, motor control, communication, or homeostasis.
- Applications should aim to understand these circuits of the central nervous system by systematically controlling stimuli and/or behavior while actively recording and/or manipulating relevant dynamic patterns of neural activity and by measuring the resulting behaviors and/or perceptions.
- Applications are expected to employ approaches and experimental design guided by specified theoretical constructs, and are encouraged to employ quantitative, mechanistic, and predictive models where appropriate. Model systems, including the possibility of multiple species ranging from invertebrates to humans, can be employed and should be appropriately justified.
- Programs should employ multi-component teams of research expertise—including neurobiologists, statisticians, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, computer scientists, and data scientists, as appropriate—that seek to cross boundaries of interdisciplinary collaboration.
- Applicants will be required to manage their data and analysis methods in a framework that will be developed and used in the proposed U19 program and exchanged with other U19 awardees for further refinement and development.
What is the Project Budget?
There is no budget limit for a U19. The budget should be sufficient to cover the needs of the proposed program, including professional administrative and data science staff, and must reflect actual program needs.
What is the Project Period?
The scope of the proposed project should determine the project period. The maximum period is 5 years, with a possible competitive renewal for up to 5 more years.
What Are the Key Application Dates?
- Posting date: May 23, 2022
- Open date: August 16, 2022
- Due dates: September 15, 2023; September 13, 2024 (by 5:00 p.m. local time of applicant)
Who Can I Contact with Questions?
James Gnadt, Ph.D.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Where Can I Find More Information?
More information, including a full description of the funding opportunity (Section I), award information (Section II), eligibility (Section III), application requirements (Section IV), and review criteria (Section V) are available in the announcement.
Additional Funding Opportunities
The BRAIN Understanding Circuits program encompasses a family of "Integrated and Quantitative Approaches to Understanding Circuits" FUNDING OPPORTUNITYs, including the U01 and U19 opportunities posted above. You can learn more about this family of opportunities on the Understanding Circuits webpage. For additional NIH BRAIN Initiative opportunities, visit the Notices of Funding Opportunities webpage.