Research Stimulus Grants in Aging
Program Description
Now in its third year, the aim of this program is to build greater strength in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary aging research. The Institute on Aging will award up to four developmental grants, which are intended to help investigators build viable research proposals in aging through the use of structured mentoring from colleagues who are senior researchers in the field of aging.
In order to stimulate the participation of more faculty in interdisciplinary aging research, The Institute on Aging will award grants in the range of $7,500 to $10,000. The grantee will be expected to use these funds to build an interdisciplinary team and to develop a research proposal in aging. Thus, the proposal submitted should be viewed not as a research grant but as a research development grant.
WHY WAS THIS STIMULUS PROGRAM INITIATED?
The UNC Institute on Aging (IOA) is as an Interdisciplinary Program of the UNC System. In addition to its educational and service activities, the IOA research program addresses the major thematic areas of: health promotion and health behavior, communities and aging (including but not limited to rural aging), aging workforce and retirement, care and aging, aging and public policy and diversity. However, through this Research Stimulus Grants Program it is prepared to support research initiatives in not only these areas but a much broader aspect of aging—so long as these initiatives are interdisciplinary.
There is considerable strength in aging research at UNC in medicine and public health, but less so in the arts and sciences and in many other professional schools. The Institute would like to foster a broader approach to aging research that crosses interdisciplinary boundaries. This echoes the sentiments expressed at the UNC Aging Research Retreat, “Disciplinary Depth; Multidisciplinary Breadth; Interdisciplinary Linkages.”
In running this stimulus grant program, we address a persistent need on the UNC at Chapel Hill campus: to build greater strength in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. There is currently great interest among funders in research that brings together disciplines from a broad spectrum, ranging from fields as diverse as biology and nanotechnology to sociology and philosophy. This is evidenced by the NIH Roadmap Initiative.
The Institute would like to involve, as principal investigators or as research team members those who are: (a) relatively new investigators and (b) investigators who may be doing research on topics related to aging but who do not define themselves in that way. For example, economists might be interested in financial aspects of health care, or pension issues but not see this as aging-related research. Projects that link junior with more senior investigators, or projects that link those new to the field of aging research with experienced aging researchers, will bring more investigators into the field and expand our efforts in this area at UNC. For this reason, the grants will be accompanied by a structured mentoring program that will introduce scholars new to the aging area to the field of aging, and assist them to develop and submit viable, fundable proposals. When funded, the IOA will continue to support the investigators through grants management and dedicated intellectual resources.
WHAT ARE THE ‘RULES’ FOR THIS COMPETITION?
The details of the Institute on Aging Research Stimulus Program are as follows:
1. The process will begin with a letter of intent from interested faculty members due to the Institute on Aging by 5 pm on Monday May 5, 2008. Individuals will be provided feedback with guidance for completing a short proposal due to the Institute by 5 pm on June 2, 2008.
2. The grant will be made to a member of the regular faculty in any UNC department or school, of any rank or a permanent EPA non-faculty employee working at the University in research capacity and in the normal case would have a doctorate qualification.
3. The investigator, in consultation with the IOA, will form a research team that is interdisciplinary (including two or more investigators from at least two disciplinary backgrounds.
4. Grant recipients (and research team) will be assigned a mentor (or mentor team) experienced in aging research by the Institute on Aging, to assist them in development of the proposal.
5. Grant recipients must agree to attend the Institute on Aging seminars offered weekly through the academic year (2008-2009).
6. Grant recipients must also agree to attend a monthly workshop session to refine and enhance their projects and ultimately their proposals in development (June, 2008-May, 2009).
7. Proposals developed through this program must be targeted at peer-reviewed funding sources such as the National Institute on Aging, the National Science Foundation, or major foundations with new or existing funding initiatives in aging.
8. The resulting proposals must be submitted through the Institute on Aging and, if successful, the research will be housed in the Institute on Aging. The Institute’s experienced research support staff will assist in the submission process.
9. The short proposal should be accompanied by a letter of support from the department chair or dean (as appropriate).
The Institute’s Overhead Sharing Policy uses a formula to divide indirects among the Principal Investigator, the PI’s department or school, and the IOA. The policy is available for download at http://www.aging.unc.edu/research/index.html
In addition to the grant and the mentoring, the Institute on Aging will support the initiative by providing: a dedicated workspace for the project; support of its library and information service; administrative support for the project; access to statistical support and the administrative support to bring the proposal to submission.
WHAT KIND OF MENTORING WILL BE PROVIDED?
- Mentoring will begin as soon as a prospective applicant contacts the Institute to express interest in the Grants program. The IOA Director and the Associate Director for Research will provide initial guidance in formulating the letter of intent. They will also consult in selection of the research team members, if required. At the stage of developing the required full proposal for submission, additional mentoring will be provided by other Institute on Aging scientists, and referrals will be made to additional mentors, as appropriate, who are involved with the various programs of the Institute.
- The proposal will include a mentoring plan, worked out in collaboration with the IOA, and the mentor or mentoring team will be of assistance throughout the project, if the project is funded.
- Monthly workshop meetings will bring together the scholars funded by the Research Stimulus Grants in Aging Program for ongoing assistance to the investigator team as it prepares a proposal for external funding.
- In addition, we will expect the principal investigators to attend the weekly seminars of the IOA, held during the academic year.
- It is expected that mentoring through the program may, in many cases, lead to significant refinement in research goals and methods stated in the letter of intent or short proposal to the program.
WHO CAN APPLY?
Proposals are welcome from any and all departments and schools at UNC at Chapel Hill. The applicant should be a member of the regular faculty in any UNC department or school, of any rank, or a permanent EPA non-faculty employee working at the University in research capacity. In the normal case, the applicant will have a doctorate qualification. We anticipate that several applicants will be new to the field of aging research, or that they may be interested in re-casting their existing research in terms of aging.
WHAT COUNTS AS AGING RESEARCH?
This program is explicitly intended to broaden the view of aging research. While “the aged” is a worthy topic, so is “Aging”—which is a lifelong process. We hope to attract applications from people who might not currently view themselves as doing aging research – although we certainly look for applications from those who do consider their work to be in aging. The following examples will suggest the kind of faculty we are interested in supporting:
- an investigator may be interested in religious behavior and now wishes to study this as an aging issue (some research suggests that religiosity is associated with better health in later life; some suggest that people become more religious as they grow older; some people are interested in how formal religious behavior is relevant to people of different ages, or affected by the aging of the population);
- a clinical investigator or epidemiologist might be interested in conducting research concerning a disease that is age-related, such as diabetes, arthritis, or many cancers, but now wants to frame this research explicitly in terms of the relationship with and impact of aging and life course issues;
- an investigator might be interested in developing a project from “bench to bedside to the community,” in other words, one that incorporates basic science, clinical science and translational disciplines on an aging-related topic.
- a political scientist unfamiliar with gerontological research may be interested in the politics of aging in relation to electoral politics or interest groups of different ages;
- an investigator may be interested in studies of welfare state politics or economics but now wish to frame these in terms of age-related issues such as Social Security or Medicare (which constitute the bulk of welfare state expenditures). In such cases it would be desirable to include as other team members faculty who do have research experience in aging;
- an art historian might be interested in research exploring the treatment of old age, or youth, or various life stages, in different media;
- a faculty member in the School of Business may wish to team with a demographer to investigate the impact of population aging on housing markets or other consumer behavior, or with a sociologist to study age-related human resources management practices, or with a psychologist to examine the ability of older members of the workforce to adapt to new technologies;
- a biologist might wish to explore the ethical or social implications of new developments in cell biology that have implications for longevity.
The point of these examples is to suggest that we would like to entertain any kind of proposal from any discipline, so long as it involves faculty from at least two different departments or schools, and attempts an interdisciplinary approach.
