NIH offers high-risk grants

September - October, 2008  |  Volume 7, Issue 5

The NIH recently announced a new five-year $250 million program to foster radical or risky science proposals outside the traditional application process.

In response to the complaints that the current R01 investigator-initiated grant process discourages bold, creative and risky research proposals, the NIH created the T-R01 program--the T standing for "transformative."

"The T-R01 Program will pilot novel approaches to peer review to facilitate identification and support of the most ground-breaking, high impact research and augment the existing Pioneer and New Innovator Awards programs," said NIH Director Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni.

The purpose of the T-R01 Program is to support exceptionally innovative, original or unconventional research that will allow investigators to seize unexpected opportunities and cultivate bold ideas regardless of the anticipated risk.

Studies favored under the new program would come from the following fields--science of behavior change, protein capture, functional variation in mitochondria, complex 3-D tissue models, acute to chronic pain transition and pharmacogenomics.

The program's goals are to:

• forge the synthesis of new paradigms for biomedical or behavioral sciences.
• reflect an exceptional level of creativity in proposing bold and ground-breaking approaches to fundamental problems.
• promote radical changes in a field of study with a profound impact in other scientific areas.
• be evaluated by new procedures being piloted by the NIH Center for Scientific Review that are distinct from the traditional NIH peer review process.

Applications are being accepted now. For more information go to http://tinyurl.com/4508fh.

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