Research Revealed: Social Justice and Health in US Cities

Collaborate

RESEARCH ON TAP
Social Justice and Health in US Cities

Research on Tap brings together groups of BU researchers on important topics. On Wednesday, March 15, faculty studying the health impacts of violence and the criminal justice system share insights and solutions.

POLICY WORKSHOP
Building Successful Collaborative Relationships with Policymakers

Interested in influencing policy with your research? An upcoming workshop offers best practices for scholars seeking to forge new connections to solve complex social problems.

Implications of ChatGPT for researchers (Nature)

Funding opportunities for early-career investigators (BU Research Support)

Find Funding

Antiracist Research & Policy: The Center for Antiracist Research is seeking interdisciplinary research and policy (R&P) teams, led by BU faculty. R&P teams are interdisciplinary clusters of researchers, policy experts, journalists, artists, and advocates working to reverse racist policies and advance racial equality. Proposals are due Monday, April 3.

New Proposal Development Support: BU is rolling out a suite of research development services to support faculty investigators in securing extramural funding and leading programs for their research, including workshops, templates, and consulting for large-scale, interdisciplinary grants. New resources include an expanded Proposal Library, now browsable by grant component (e.g., biosketches, data management plans), and a recording of a recent workshop on developing plans to promote equitable and inclusive research.

National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Program: BU early-career faculty are encouraged to apply for the NSF’s Early Career Development Program. Proposals are due Wednesday, July 26.

Summer in the Field Fellowship Program: The Global Development Policy Center has opened its Summer in the Field Fellowship for BU graduate students. The fellowship provides stipends to select students who would like to take advantage of unpaid internship opportunities that would otherwise be financially unfeasible. Applications close Friday, March 24. 

Sustainability Research for Faculty: The Institute for Global Sustainability is launching its inaugural Sustainable Research Grant, an annual award jointly sponsored by the School of Public Health for 2023-2024 to advance research at the intersection of climate change, sustainability, public health, and equity, with funding up to $150,000. Proposals are due Friday, April 7.

Sustainability Research Fellowship for Graduate Students: For its 2023 summer fellows program, the Institute for Global Sustainability is seeking research proposals from graduate students interested in planetary health and human well-being, the governance and politics of sustainability transitions, and energy systems of the future. Proposals are due Friday, March 24. 

Manage an Award

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Funding Acknowledgement: A reminder to all BU researchers that NIH award terms and conditions require proper acknowledgement of NIH support in papers, presentations, posters, and press releases. According to Mike Lauer, deputy director of extramural research with the agency, “NIH relies on proper acknowledgements to link publications to awards, and reviewers rely on it to help assess award productivity.”

Funded researchers must acknowledge NIH awards in publications when the activities that contributed to that publication directly arise from the award and are within the scope of the award being acknowledged. Please review the full guidelines for acknowledging federal funding.

New Proposal Requirements for NIH-funded Research: The NIH has issued a new Data Management and Sharing Policy to promote the sharing of scientific data from NIH-funded research. Effective as of January 25, the NIH now expects investigators and institutions to plan and budget for managing and sharing data, submit a formal plan for review when applying for funding, and comply with the approved plan. A University working group has developed materials to help faculty navigate this policy change. Find resources, FAQs, and more on the Research Support site.

NIH Stipends, Tuition/Fees, and Other Budgetary Levels for FY23: The NIH announced that the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award stipend rates will increase for FY23 awards for undergraduate, predoctoral, and postdoctoral trainees and fellows. Details can be found on the Research Support website. Please contact your Sponsored Programs research administrator with any questions.

Conducting Research

Human Subjects Research: On Tuesday, February 14, routine testing in the development (testing) instance of REDCap triggered outgoing notifications to users and potentially participants. If this technical issue has impacted research participants or study data specific to you, please submit an event report to the Charles River Campus Institutional Review Board office so they can assist with corrective action as necessary.

Conflict of Interest (COI) Disclosures: Beginning Monday, March 13, all COI disclosures, determinations, management plans, and updates will transition from SharePoint to Huron COI. Visit the Research Support site to learn more and sign up for an upcoming training, or email coi@bu.edu with questions.

Paths to Impact

From Lab to Fab: BU’s Photonics Center is home to some of the finest on-campus business incubation facilities in the country, including the Business Innovation Center. For Mohamed Azize, a biomedical engineer and a senior manager at Analog Devices, the giant chip maker, the space has provided an ideal ecosystem for developing and working on a new biomedical sensor to improve home-testing for viruses. Read more

Notes & News

Clare Boothe Luce Professor Jennifer Balakrishnan, Mathematics (CAS), received the Joan and Joseph Birman Fellowship for Women Scholars from the American Mathematical Society.

Two BU research teams were selected for STAT Madness, a bracket-style competition for the most innovative US biomedical research. The selected projects were led by Professor Alice White, Mechanical Engineering (ENG), whose team engineered a living heart chamber replica to help researchers better study heart disease, and Professor Xin Zhang, Mechanical Engineering (ENG), whose team designed a magnetic metamaterial helmet with the potential to make MRI scans crisper and more affordable. Voting is now live.

The Center on Forced Displacement received $225k from the Mellon Foundation to fund their Sawyer Seminar series, which explores the EU-Western Balkans and US-Mexico border regimes through talks scheduled in 2023 and 2024. Learn more on the center’s website.

The NIH seeks feedback from the scientific community on several new policies and research priorities, including how the biomedical research enterprise can improve postdoctoral research training; its proposed public access plan, designed to make the results of NIH-sponsored research readily available to the public; and the 2024-2028 strategic plan for the agency’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Comments are due in April (see links for specific deadlines).

Professor Ji-Xin Cheng and Assistant Professor Lei Tian, Electrical & Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering (ENG), were each awarded more than $1 million in funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to further dynamic imaging research.

Professor Carol Neidle, Linguistics (CAS) and affiliate faculty at the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, with co-PIs from Rutgers University and the Rochester Institute of Technology, was awarded $750k from the NSF Convergence Accelerator program for the development of AI-based tools to enhance access and opportunities for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.

Associate Professor Catherine Espaillat, Astronomy (CAS); Professor Vivek Goyal, Electrical & Computer Engineering (ENG); and Professor Malika Jeffries-EL, Chemistry (CAS) and Material Science Engineering (ENG), were named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Associate Professors Daniel P. Miller and Linda Sprague Martinez (SSW) have been inducted as fellows of the Society of Social Work and Research.

The Global Development Policy Center announced its inaugural cohort of six full-time Human Capital Initiative (HCI) Faculty Affiliates, representing diverse departments across the University. The HCI Faculty Affiliate Program brings together outstanding BU researchers whose scholarship is centered around issues related to human capital, social and economic development, and human well-being to actively support faculty research activities in these areas.

Upcoming Events

Trainings and seminars for BU’s research community

Trainings & How-to

Mar 14: Find a Collaborator: Making Research Connections at BU

Mar 28: Find Funding for Biomedical Research: Meet Health Resources in Action

Apr 5: Find Funding in the Sciences: Meet the Pew Charitable Trusts

Apr 11: Building Successful CollaborativeRelationships with Policymakers

Apr 13: Media Tips for Mitigating Risk in Interviews

Apr 19: Community-Engaged Research to Advance Health Equity

Seminars & Events

Mar 15: Research on Tap: Safety, Justice, and Health in US Cities

Mar 20-21: MOC Alliance Workshop

Mar 22: Research on Tap: Environmental Cultures, Power, and Equity

Mar 29: Streeten Distinguished Lecture in Global Development Policy: The Blurred Contours of a New International Financial Order, with Eswar Prasad

Mar 31: Justice, Energy & Transport: Key Climate Mitigation Insights from the IPCC Report

Past Events

Video recordings and other resources from recent events

Trainings & How-to

Research Development: Developing DEI Plans

Clinical Effectiveness Research: Meet the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

Seminars & Events

Research on Tap: China and the World

Research on Tap: Robotics and Autonomous Systems

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