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

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Ashoka Changemakers Grant

Ashoka Changemakers has launched the Activating Empathy: Transforming Schools to Teach What Matters grant competition. This is a global competition that seeks solutions to helping young people learn about and employ empathy to solve today's problems.

Amount: $5,000

Date due: February 23, 2012 (eligible for early entry award); March 30, 2012

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Young Faculty Award

The Department of Defense solicits ground-breaking single-investigator proposals from junior faculty for research and development in the areas of Physical Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, Medicine, Biology, Information and Social Sciences of interest to DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), and Information Innovation Office (I2O).

Amount: $300,000

Date due: January 19, 2012

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NSF Political Science Program

The NSF Political Science Program supports scientific research that advances knowledge and understanding of citizenship, government, and politics. Research proposals are expected to be theoretically motivated, conceptually precise, methodologically rigorous, and empirically oriented. Substantive areas include, but are not limited to, American government and politics, comparative government and politics, international relations, political behavior, political economy, and political institutions.

In recent years, program awards have supported research projects on bargaining processes; campaigns and elections, electoral choice, and electoral systems; citizen support in emerging and established democracies; democratization, political change, and regime transitions; domestic and international conflict; international political economy; party activism; political psychology and political tolerance. The Program also has supported research experiences for undergraduate students and infrastructural activities, including methodological innovations, in the discipline.

Amount: Varies

Date due: January 15, 2012

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Social Science Research Council seeks grant proposals

The Social Science Research Council has announced the launch of a major new project and grants program entitled "New Directions in the Study of Prayer." Supported with funding from the John Templeton Foundation and developed in conjunction with the SSRC's program on Religion and the Public Sphere, the project aims to generate innovative research on practices of prayer and to foster the development of an interdisciplinary network of scholars engaged in the study of prayer.

The project invites proposals from scholars in all disciplines for studies that will enhance knowledge of the social, cultural, psychological, and cognitive dimensions of prayer, and of its origins, variations, and correlations in human life. Of special interest are proposals for research that will shed new light on the relationships between the practice of prayer and virtue, human flourishing, altruism, and creativity, or that examine the cognitive aspects of prayer, the embeddedness of prayer in religious and nonreligious institutions, the social dimensions of prayer, and cultural variations in prayer across societies and religious traditions.

Proposals will be especially encouraged from, but will not be restricted to, the disciplines of anthropology, cognitive science, history, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, religious studies, and sociology. New Directions in the Study of Prayer will welcome proposals for projects that study any religious tradition(s) and milieu(s), and that focus on populations in any geographical region(s) of the world. Proposals must include a clearly articulated program of empirical research. Proposals may include a focus on theology but should not be restricted to theological inquiry. Historical topics are of interest only insofar as they specifically relate to practices and understandings of prayer in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Approximately twenty to twenty-five grants, ranging from $50,000 to $200,000, each with a duration of two years, will be awarded.

Amount: $50,000 - $200,000

Date due: December 1, 2011

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Debate Team Grants for Departments and Schools in Universities

The Open Society Foundation (OSF) will provide up to three years of funding to colleges, universities, and other educational institutions to integrate debate across disciplines. The International Debate Education Association will implement the programs and help OSF identify and provide support to grantees.

Grants will be available for institutions that have either very small debate programs or none at all. Grants also will be made to institutions seeking to promote public debates within the broader communities that they serve and to increase the capacity of young people from marginalized communities to engage in debates concerning controversial issues affecting their lives.

Amount: $25,000

Date due: Rolling

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Partnerships for International Research (PIRE)

Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) is an NSF-wide program that supports international activities across all NSF supported disciplines. The primary goal of PIRE is to support high quality projects in which advances in research and education could not occur without international collaboration. PIRE seeks to catalyze a higher level of international engagement in the U.S. science and engineering community. International partnerships are essential to addressing critical science and engineering problems. In the global context, U.S. researchers and educators must be able to operate effectively in teams with partners from different nations and cultural backgrounds. PIRE promotes excellence in science and engineering through international collaboration and facilitates development of a diverse, globally-engaged, U.S. science and engineering workforce. This PIRE competition will focus exclusively on the NSF-wide investment area of Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES). The SEES effort focuses on interdisciplinary topics that will advance sustainability science, engineering and education as an integrative approach to the challenges of adapting to environmental, social and cultural changes associated with growth and development of human populations, and attaining a sustainable energy future.

Amount: $4 million across 5 years

Date due: Preliminary proposals due October 19, 2011

For more information, click here.