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RGK Foundation seeks health related proposals

The Austin-based RGK Foundation is inviting proposals in the broad areas of education, community, and health and medicine.

The foundation's primary interests include formal K-12 education (particularly math, science, and reading), teacher development, literacy, and higher education. The foundation's community grants support a broad range of human services, community improvement, abuse prevention, and youth development programs. The foundation's current interests in health and medicine include programs that promote the health and well-being of children, programs that promote access to health services, and foundation-initiated programs focusing on ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).

Dates due: March 1, 2013; June 14, 2013; September 20, 2013

For more information, click here.

General Mills Foundation Champions for Health Kids

The General Mills Foundation, in partnership with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation and the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, is inviting nonprofit organizations in the United States working to improve youth nutrition and physical fitness behaviors to apply for the Champions for Healthy Kids program.

The program will award fifty grants of $10,000 to community-based groups such as health departments, government agencies, schools, and Native American Tribes that develop creative ways to help youth adopt a balanced diet and physically active lifestyle.

To ensure that the nutrition information in the proposed program is accurate and is scientifically based, a registered dietitian must either be directly involved or serve as an advisor to the program.

Project periods will vary depending on program and setting (such as school year or summer program). However, the project should be completed within twelve months . One-day/one-time events will not be funded.

Amount: $10,000

Date due: December 3, 2012

For more information, click here.

Maternal & Child Health Research Program

Within the R40 MCH Research Program, funding is available in FY 2013 to support approximately six (6) extramural multi-year research projects. The R40 MCH Research Program supports applied research relating to maternal and child health services including services for children with special health care needs, which show promise of substantial contribution to advancement of the current knowledge pool, and when used in States and communities should result in health and health services improvements. Findings from the research supported by the MCH Research Program are expected to have potential for application in health care delivery programs for mothers and children. Research proposals should address critical MCH questions such as public health systems and infrastructure, health disparities, quality of care, and promoting the health of MCH populations, which also support the goals of the Health Resources and Services Administration. The "life course perspective" is currently being integrated into MCHB's strategic directions, and can serve as a helpful frame of reference for study proposals designed to address the critical MCH questions defined by the Bureau. The Maternal and Child Health Bureau periodically reexamines its applied research agenda. In June 2003, the Bureau initiated the process of updating its research agenda by convening a work group to exchange information regarding the current and emerging issues of importance in the field. Members of the work group represented State and Federal agencies, institutions of higher learning and other organizations, who are prominent in the field and whose work has helped to advance the field. Based on the individual recommendations of these individuals, the Bureau developed the MCHB Strategic Research Issues (see Appendix B). The Bureau encourages translational research studies that specifically address issues related to MCHB investments and programs. Addressing one of the four strategic research issues is a review criterion worth up to 10 points in the overall score of an application. Secondary Data Analysis Studies (SDAS) Program Within the R40 MCH Research Program, funding is available in FY 2013 to support approximately ten (10) studies that analyze existing secondary MCH data. 


Amount: $100,000 - $300,000


Date due: September 12, 2012


For more information, click here.

Improving Diet & Physical Activity

This Funding Opportunity will support research pertinent to improving the measurements of diet and physical activity through the development of better instruments, innovative technologies, and/or applications of advanced statistical/analytic techniques. Research proposed in the applications should be aimed at exploring and optimizing innovative combinations of objective and self-report measures of physical activity or dietary intake in both the general population and its diverse subgroups.  Specifically, this funding opportunity is intended to support innovative research focused on assessments of dietary and physical activity patterns and the settings in which such behaviors occur, not on the determinants of these behaviors or on studies of the causal association between environment and behavior. 

Amount: $275,000

Date due: February 16, 2013; October 16, 2013; June 16, 2014; February 16, 2015

For more information, click here.

Healthy Eating Research

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Healthy Eating Research: Building Evidence to Prevent Childhood Obesity program supports research on environmental and policy strategies with strong potential to promote healthy eating among children to prevent childhood obesity, especially among lower-income and racial and ethnic populations at highest risk for obesity. Findings are expected to advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. 

The primary goal of this CFP is to fund and communicate strategic and timely research addressing key evidence needed to advance RWJF's policy priorities — providing advocates, decision-makers, and policy-makers with innovative, solution-oriented, policy-relevant environmental and policy studies to guide policy action.

Proposals are invited for two types of awards: 1) Round 7 grants, and 2) RWJF New Connections grants awarded through the Healthy Eating Research program.

Round 7 grants represent the majority of RWJF's investment in research through this program. Approximately $1.7 million will be awarded in grants of up to $170,000 for a maximum funding period of eighteen months. Concept papers may be submitted at any time until August 9, 2012. The deadlines for receipt of invited full proposals are May 31, 2012; July 31, 2012; and October 4, 2012.

The New Connections grants are offered in collaboration with RWJF's New Connections program, which is designed to expand the diversity of perspectives that inform RWJF programming and introduce new researchers and scholars to the foundation. These grants are to support research by new investigators representing populations and communities historically underrepresented in childhood obesity prevention research, including researchers from underrepresented ethnic or racial minority groups and lower-income communities and those who are first-generation college graduates. Up to two grants of up to $100,000 will be awarded for projects of twelve to eighteen months. Concept papers are due May 22, 2012; invited full proposals will be due July 21, 2012.

For more information, click here.

Transforming Undergraduate Education in STEM

The Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (TUES) program seeks to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for all undergraduate students. This solicitation especially encourages projects that have the potential to transform undergraduate STEM education, for example, by bringing about widespread adoption of classroom practices that embody understanding of how students learn most effectively. Thus transferability and dissemination are critical aspects for projects developing instructional materials and methods and should be considered throughout the project's lifetime. More advanced projects should involve efforts to facilitate adaptation at other sites. 

The program supports efforts to create, adapt, and disseminate new learning materials and teaching strategies to reflect advances both in STEM disciplines and in what is known about teaching and learning. It funds projects that develop faculty expertise, implement educational innovations, assess learning and evaluate innovations, prepare K-12 teachers, or conduct research on STEM teaching and learning. It also supports projects that further the work of the program itself, for example, synthesis and dissemination of findings across the program. The program supports projects representing different stages of development, ranging from small, exploratory investigations to large, comprehensive projects. 

Amount: Varies

Date due: May 27, 2012

For more information, click here.

Roadmaps to Health Community Grants

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Roadmaps to Health Community Grants program will support communities working to implement policy or system changes to address one of the social or economic factors that, as defined by the County Health Rankings, most strongly influence health outcomes in their community. These include education, employment and income, family and social support, and community safety.

Grantees will be organizations that participate in established coalitions or networks spanning multiple sectors and perspectives and may include representatives from business, education, public health, healthcare, community organizations, community members, policy advocates, foundations, and policymakers. Applicants must engage community members in the planning and implementation of projects, and must collaborate with organizations having expertise in improving the health of the public. Applicants also must secure 100 percent matching support, including a cash match of at least 50 percent, with the balance as in-kind support.

Amount: $200,000

Date due: May 2, 2012

For more information, click here.

Research on the Health of LGBTI Populations

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to supporting research that will increase scientific understanding of the health status of various population groups and improve the effectiveness of health interventions and services for individuals within those groups. High priority is placed on research on populations that appear to have distinctive health risk profiles but have received insufficient attention from investigators. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) highlights a particular community: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and related populations (designated here as LGBTI populations). Basic, social, behavioral, clinical, and services research relevant to the missions of the sponsoring Institutes and Centers may be proposed.

Amount: Varies

Date due: May 7, 2012

For more information, click here.

Smart Health & Well-being (NSF)

Through the Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB) Program, NSF seeks to address fundamental technical and scientific issues that would support much needed transformation of healthcare from reactive and hospital-centered to preventive, proactive, evidence-based, person-centered and focused on wellbeing rather than disease. The issues to be addressed include, but are not limited to, sensor technology, networking, information and machine learning technology, modeling cognitive processes, system and process modeling, and social and economic issues. Effective technology-based solutions must satisfy a multitude of constraints arising from clinical needs, social interactions, cognitive limitations, barriers to behavioral changes, heterogeneity of data, semantic mismatch and limitations of current cyberphysical systems. The high degree of complexity and broad range of the problems require multidisciplinary teams of scientists and engineers to identify and address barriers limiting quality of life, independence for chronically ill and elder individuals, and other aspects of wellbeing. Fundamental technological advances are also needed to understand the impediments that prevent people from engaging in health-promoting life styles including diet and exercise and from participating in their healthcare decisions.Proposers are invited to submit proposals in two project classes, which are defined as follows:Type I: Exploratory Projects (EXP) - $200,000 to $600,000 total budget with durations from two to three years; andType II: Integrative Projects (INT) - $600,001 to $2,000,000 total budget with durations from four to five yearsA more complete description of the project classes can be found in section II. Program Description, of this document.

Date due: February 21, 2012

For more information, click here.

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is a nonprofit organization that promotes health, broadly defined, through partnerships between communities and institutions of higher education.

The CCPH Award is designed to recognize exemplary partnerships between communities and institutions that build on each other's strengths to improve higher education, civic engagement, and the overall health of communities.

The intent of the award is to highlight the power and potential of community-campus partnerships in the social justice field. The award recognizes partnerships that are striving to achieve the systems and policy changes needed to overcome the root causes of health, social, and economic inequalities. The award seeks nominations of partnerships that pursue multiple community-campus partnership strategies, involve a full range of partners, and achieve significant outcomes that go beyond a process or a single event.

Partnerships may nominate themselves and need not be members of CCPH.

Date due: January 16, 2012

For more information, click here.

2012 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health Leaders

The 2012 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health Leaders awards program will recognize individuals in the United States working to solve the health challenges that confront their own communities. Nominees may be someone doing exceptional work to improve health or access to healthcare in his or her community, or someone who has solved a daunting community health problem.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selects ten unsung heroes each year to receive the award, which includes national recognition, opportunities to network and collaborate with fellow health leaders around the country, and $125,000 to support the leader's work. The winners receive tools and knowledge to help them continue their efforts to improve health and healthcare where they live.

Selected leaders come from diverse professional backgrounds and regions of the country. Among other examples, recent award winners are providing compassionate care to dementia patients; supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth; providing free healthcare to homeless women; and developing support services for brain injury survivors.

For more information, click here.

Public Health Services and Systems Research

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has announced a call for proposals for its Public Health Services and Systems Research (PHSSR) grants.

The PHSSR program examines the organization, financing, and delivery of public health services within a community and determines the links between the quality and performance of the public health system and population health outcomes. RWJF is supporting this field of research to advance public health practice and improve population health through evidence-based enhancements in the public health system. The National Network of Public Health Institutes serves as the administrative support office and will facilitate the call for proposals for this program, which will provide financial support to conduct research addressing the most critical issues facing the nation's public health system.

Practitioners, researchers, and policy makers may serve as principal investigators. This solicitation seeks to engage new researchers in the field of PHSSR. Researchers who have not previously conducted research in the field of PHSSR are encouraged to apply, and junior investigators (less than seven years since doctorate) and first-time applicants will be strongly considered.

Approximately $2.7 million is available in this round of funding. Up to fourteen grants will be awarded. Grantees will receive up to $200,000 each in financial support to be used over a two-year period.

The foundation will hold a Web conference for interested applicants on April 27, 2011. Registration for the Web conference is required.

For more information, click here.

The Effect of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination/Bias on Health Care Delivery (R03)

This funding opportunity announcement encourages the submission of research project grant applications from institutions/organizations that propose to: (1) improve the measurement of racial/ethnic discrimination in health care delivery systems through improved instrumentation, data collection, and statistical/analytical techniques; (2) enhance understanding of the influence of racial/ethnic discrimination in health care delivery and its association with disparities in disease incidence, treatment, and outcomes among disadvantaged racial/ethnic minority groups; and (3) to reduce the prevalence of racial/ethnic health disparities through the development of interventions to reduce the influence of racial/ethnic discrimination on health care delivery systems in the United States. This R03 grant mechanism supports pilot or feasibility studies and developmental research projects with the intention of obtaining sufficient preliminary data for a subsequent investigator-initiated Research Project Grant (R01) application.

Amount: $50,000/year for 2 years

Date due: June 16, 2011; October 16, 2011

For more information, click here.

Health Impact Assessments grant

The Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, has announced a Call for Proposals for grants to conduct Health Impact Assessments. The funding is intended to enable awardees to develop an HIA, which is a study that can help policy makers and community members identify and address the potential, and often overlooked, health implications of policy proposals in a broad range of sectors, including agriculture, transportation, and development.

The Health Impact Project will fund up to eight initiatives that identify how policy proposals will impact health at the local, tribal, or state level.

Grants will range from $25,000 to $125,000 each and will support government agencies, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations. Grantees also will receive training, mentoring, and technical assistance from the Health Impact Project and leading HIA experts.

Amount: $25,000 - $125,000

Date due: June 1, 2011

For more information, click here.

New Connections: Increasing Diversity (RWJF)

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's New Connections: Increasing Diversity of RWJF Programming initiative is designed to expand the diversity of perspectives that inform RWJF programming and introduce new researchers and scholars to the foundation while simultaneously helping to meet staff needs for data analysis.

The program invites Junior Investigators — scholars from historically disadvantaged and underrepresented communities — to submit brief proposals that address programming priorities for one of RWJF's program areas. In this round of funding, up to five of the total number of grants selected will be designated for Public Health Law Research awards.

Amount: Varies

Date due: May 5, 2011

For more information, click here.

Support for Conferences and Scientific Meetings (R13)

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recognizes the value of supporting high quality scientific meetings that are relevant to its scientific mission and to the public health. A scientific meeting is defined as a gathering, symposium, seminar, conference, workshop or any other organized, formal meeting where persons assemble to coordinate, exchange, and disseminate information or to explore or clarify a defined subject, problem, or area of knowledge. Support of such meetings is contingent on the fiscal and programmatic interests and priorities of NIOSH, which are linked to the websites http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ and http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/programs/.

Amount: Varies

Date due: April 12, 2011 or August 12, 2011

For more information, click here.

Reducing Health Disparities Among Minority and Underserved Children (R21)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), encourages Research Project Grant (R21) applications from institutions/organizations that propose to conduct research to reduce health disparities among minority and underserved children. Specifically, this initiative focuses on ethnic and racial minority children and underserved populations of children such as: children from low literacy, rural and low-income populations, geographically isolated children, hearing and visually impaired children, physically or mentally disabled children, children of migrant workers, children from immigrant and refugee families, and language minority children. Specific targeted areas of research include biobehavioral studies that incorporate multiple factors that influence child health disparities such as biological (e.g., genetics, cellular, organ systems), lifestyle factors, environmental (physical and family environments), social (e.g., peers), economic, institutional, and cultural and family influences; studies that target the specific health promotion needs of children with a known illness and/or disability; and studies that test and evaluate the comparative effectiveness of health promotion interventions conducted in traditional and nontraditional settings.

The R21 exploratory/developmental grant supports investigation of novel scientific ideas or new model systems, tools, or technologies that have the potential for significant impact on biomedical or biobehavioral research. An R21 grant application need not have extensive background material or preliminary information. Accordingly, reviewers will focus their evaluation on the conceptual framework, the level of innovation, and the potential to significantly advance our knowledge or understanding. Appropriate justification for the proposed work can be provided through literature citations, data from other sources, or, when available, from investigator-generated data. Preliminary data are not required for R21 applications; however, they may be included if available.

Amount: Varies

Date due: March 1, 2011

For more information, click here.

Reducing Health Disparities Among Minority and Underserved Children (R01)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), solicits Research Project Grant (R01) applications from institutions/organizations that propose to conduct research to reduce health disparities among minority and underserved children. Specifically, this initiative focuses on ethnic and racial minority children and underserved populations of children such as: children from low literacy, rural and low-income populations, geographically isolated children, hearing and visually impaired children, physically or mentally disabled children, children of migrant workers, children from immigrant and refugee families, and language minority children. Specific targeted areas of research include biobehavioral studies that incorporate multiple factors that influence child health disparities such as biological (e.g., genetics, cellular, organ systems), lifestyle factors, environmental (physical and family environments), social (e.g., peers), economic, institutional, and cultural and family influences; studies that target the specific health promotion needs of children with a known illness and/or disability; and studies that test and evaluate the comparative effectiveness of health promotion interventions conducted in traditional and nontraditional settings.

Amount: $500,000/year

Date due: March 1, 2011

For more information, click here.

International Science and Education Grants Program

The purpose of ISE is to support the internationalization of food, agriculture and related programs at U.S. universities and colleges. It is intended that ISE will improve the ability of American students, business people, and community members to compete more effectively in the global world of agriculture. ISE projects are awarded to strengthen the global competence and competitiveness of American colleges, universities and businesses in the food, agriculture, and related sectors. In addition, ISE projects must be directed to agricultural research, extension, and/or teaching activities that enhance the capabilities of American colleges and universities to conduct international collaborative research, extension and teaching.

Amount: $150,000

Date due: January 26, 2011

For more information, click here.