April 19, 2021

Funding opportunity for historically under-resourced institutions to produce and distribute neurotechnology resources

The NIH Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative is supporting the development of technologies and dissemination resources to build a collection of resources available for a certain purpose; in this case, a collection of cell type-specific reagents to study brain function across species. A recently-issued funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will support the establishment of facilities at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and Institutional Development Award (IDeA)-eligible institutions for scaled production and distribution of these neurotechnology resources. Importantly, this FOA will support the development of reagent production and dissemination capacity at historically under-resourced institutions.

This is the first NIH BRAIN Initiative FOA that will also require a Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) as part of the application, which encourages the research community to broadly consider how diverse perspectives advance their scientific pursuits and are integral to equity and inclusion in the science they perform. Applicants must include a summary of strategies to advance the scientific and technical merit of the proposed project through expanded inclusivity. These collective efforts offer tangible steps towards enacting the culture change necessary to address the inequities and systemic biases in biomedical research, and advance scientific innovation and excellence through the inclusion of all voices.

Applications are due by July 12, 2022.