Research Round-Up
Research Round-Up is a communication devoted to sharing information related to open funding opportunities and research administration procedures.
For additional information on deadlines, processes and procedures, please instead see our Sponsored Programs Support Services webpage.
Friendly Reminder: Proposal Request Form
Individuals serving as principal investigator on a CEHS-led proposal or co-investigator/collaborator on a grant proposal led by another college or external organization must submit a Proposal Request Form a minimum of 4 weeks prior to the proposal due date. Doing so ensures the timely routing of your proposal for review and approval by College administration, Central Sponsored Programs Administration (formerly known as University Research Services), Grants & Contracts Financial Administration, and, if required, University Research Compliance.
Please address any questions or concerns regarding the information contained below to the CEHS Sponsored Programs team: Kayley Watson (Kayley.Watson@okstate.edu), Samar Abid (SamarAA@okstate.edu), or Erin Brown (Erin.Brown10@okstate.edu).
Tip of the Month
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GRA Tuition Remission on Externally Sponsored Programs
According to OSU policy 3-0421,
“All grant and contract writers shall include tuition waiver funding in all proposed budgets to prospective funding sources for GRAs working in support of the associated projects.”
Each year, the OSU calculates a “tuition remission rate” to be used in externally sponsored proposal budgets. The current FY25 GRA Tuition rate being applied to proposed budgets is 19.24%. This rate is automatically featured on your proposal budget template, which is set to calculate the amount for GRA tuition by multiplying the amount budgeted for the GRA’s monthly salary or stipend by the tuition remission rate relevant to the fiscal year.
Starting August 1, 2025, the FY26 rate of 18.63% will be used, effective through July 31, 2026.
The tuition remission rate must be included on all sponsored program budgets that propose funding for a GRA’s stipend, unless the sponsor disallows tuition as a budget item. In that case, according to OSU policy, “If a sponsor does not or will not support a GRA or the GRA is not assigned to a specific sponsor, the University will fund the tuition waivers for eligible GRA positions.”
For Your Information
- OSU Webpage for Guidance and News Related to Recent Executive Orders and Federal Actions
OSU’s Vice President for Research office has crafted a web page that includes internal communication, as well as helpful resource information from national associations (e.g., APLU’s Council on Research; Council on Government Relations) regarding the recent executive orders (and rescinding these orders).
https://research.okstate.edu/faculty-resources/guidance-executive-orders.html
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OSU announces Promoting Research Excellence workshop series
Oklahoma State University faculty eager to boost their research success now have a new opportunity for professional growth — a workshop series designed to enhance their skills and impact.
In partnership with the OSU Library, the Division of the Vice President for Research is launching “Promoting Research Excellence”.
From the initial idea to publishing final results, researchers can experience challenges at any stage of the research process. This educational series is focused on offering guidance on best practices to maintain ethical and high-quality practices at every stage.
Conducted monthly in a virtual format, the PRE-workshops will provide education and training on various research topics, including data management (How to Write a Good Data Management Plan for a Grant Application), effective research collaboration (How to Avoid Authorship Disputes), articulating scholarly impact (How to Identify a Suitable Journal for Publication and Is Open Science a Friend or Foe?), ethical use of generative AI (Ethical Uses of Generative AI to Support Your Research), and research safety for early career faculty and graduate students (Safety Issues in Research – Safeguarding Individuals, Teams and Projects).
Offered throughout the academic year, these Zoom sessions will not be recorded and are available for faculty and graduate students.
Register using the links below!
PRE Spring 2025 workshop series
Thursday, March 13: 3 p.m.
Publishing with Purpose: Choosing the Right Journal for Your ResearchThursday, April 17: 3 p.m.
Oops-Proof Your Data: Security and Backup 101Thursday, May 1: 3 p.m.
The Research Ecosystem: Dysfunction and Reform -
New Mileage Reimbursement Rate for 2025
The IRS announced an increase in the mileage reimbursement rate effective Jan. 1, 2025, to $0.70 per mile. This is an increase from the $0.67 IRS rate for 2024 (refer to Internal Revenue Notice 2024-312 released Dec. 19, 2024). All state agencies may use the IRS rate for travel incurred on and after Jan. 1, 2025.
The AIRS system will be programmed so that trips occurring on or after Jan. 1, 2025 will automatically apply the correct mileage rate.
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Proposed FY26 Fringe Rates have been posted
For fiscal year FY26 (effective 07/01/2025 – 06/30/2026), the following employee fringe rates have been proposed: https://adminfinance.okstate.edu/budget/fringe-benefit-rates.html
CEHS faculty generally fall under “General University” rates, but please note that when partnering with faculty/staff/students from the College of Agricultural Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, or other OSU campuses, the fringe rates applied are different.
All CEHS proposal budgets will automatically have the correct rates corresponding to the listed employee’s position. If you have a question about this on your budget, please let us know.
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NSF CAREER Grant Workshop
All faculty considering applying for the NSF CAREER grant are encouraged to attend.
APRIL 25, 2025
1:00 - 3:00 PM
Room 130, Social Sciences and Humanities Building
Information Session 1:00 - 1:45pm
Awardee Panel Discussion 2:00 - 3:00pm
RSVP here by April 11, 2025 to reserve your seat.
The workshop will be co-facilitated by sponsored programs specialists and grant writers from the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the VPR’s office.
More information on the NSF CAREER Grant is available HERE.
Funding Opportunities
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[Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] Systems for Action: Community-Led Systems Research
to Address Systemic Racism
DEADLINE: June 4, 2025
This 2025 call for proposals (CFP) will provide funding for a new cohort of community-led pilot studies to produce new, actionable evidence about how to help medical, social, and public health systems work together to address forms of systemic racism. This CFP focuses specifically on systems alignment (SA) interventions that have the potential to dismantle or disrupt the health effects of systemic racism and to positively affect the health and wellbeing of communities that experience systemic racism. S4A prioritizes SA interventions that, if successful, can be rapidly replicated and spread to many communities and contexts across the U.S. in order to achieve broad national impact.
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[American Heart Association] Pilot Grants to Explore the Use of the AHA Protein Binding
Atlas to Discover Novel Protein Interactions
https://professional.heart.org/en/research-programs/aha-funding-opportunities/protein-atlas
DEADLINE: May 1, 2025
The AHA Protein Binding Atlas was established through a cooperative research and development agreement between the AHA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Its objective is to combine world-class technology and high-impact biology to develop a comprehensive reference atlas of cell-protein targets to accelerate and hone drug discovery. The AHA Protein Binding Atlas leverages the world-class high performance computing power of LLNL and machine learning algorithms for protein-molecule binding predictions to refine and accelerate candidate drug selection for clinical development. The Protein Binding Atlas consists of approximately two million small molecules fully simulated against nearly 15,000 proteins to model binding predictions. The Atlas is a static database of in-silico calculations of protein-ligand interactions, as well as supplemental information for proteins and ligands, intended to provide insight into drug-candidate molecules regarding on-target interactions and off-target interactions.
This request for proposals (RFP) is to solicit applications for innovative pilot projects aimed at predicting and understanding protein-protein and protein-small molecule interactions involved in key biological processes associated with cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic diseases, including obesity. Applicants are encouraged to utilize the AHA Protein Portal in their proposals -
[National Science Foundation] Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Directorate
for STEM Education (IUSE: EDU)
DEADLINE: July 16, 2025
The National Science Foundation (NSF) plays a leadership role in developing and implementing efforts to enhance and improve STEM education in the United States. Through the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) initiative, the agency continues to make a substantial commitment to the highest caliber undergraduate STEM education through a Foundation-wide framework of investments. The IUSE: EDU is a core NSF STEM education program that seeks to promote novel, creative, and transformative approaches to generating and using new knowledge about STEM teaching and learning to improve STEM education for undergraduate students. The program is open to application from all institutions of higher education and associated organizations. NSF places high value on educating students to be leaders and innovators in emerging and rapidly changing STEM fields as well as educating a scientifically literate public. In pursuit of this goal, IUSE: EDU supports projects that seek to bring recent advances in STEM knowledge into undergraduate education, that adapt, improve, and incorporate evidence-based practices into STEM teaching and learning, and that lay the groundwork for institutional improvement in STEM education. In addition to innovative work at the frontier of STEM education, this program also encourages replication of research studies at different types of institutions and with different student bodies to produce deeper knowledge about the effectiveness and transferability of findings.
IUSE: EDU also seeks to support projects that have high potential for broader societal impacts, including improved diversity of students and instructors participating in STEM education, professional development for instructors to ensure adoption of new and effective pedagogical techniques that meet the changing needs of students, and projects that promote institutional partnerships for collaborative research and development. IUSE: EDU especially welcomes proposals that will pair well with the efforts of NSF INCLUDES (https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/nsfincludes/index.jsp) to develop STEM talent from all sectors and groups in our society.
For all the above objectives, the National Science Foundation invests primarily in evidence-based and knowledge-generating approaches to understand and improve STEM learning and learning environments, improve the diversity of STEM students and majors, and prepare STEM majors for the workforce. In addition to contributing to STEM education in the host institution(s), proposals should have the promise of adding more broadly to our understanding of effective teaching and learning practices.
The IUSE: EDU program features two tracks: (1) Engaged Student Learning and (2) Institutional and Community Transformation.
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[National Endowment for the Humanities] Humanities Initiatives at Colleges and Universities
https://www.neh.gov/program/humanities-initiatives-colleges-and-universities
DEADLINE: May 6, 2025
These programs strengthen the teaching and study of the humanities at institutions of higher education by developing new or improving existing humanities programs, educational resources, or coursework.
Projects must address a core topic or focused set of themes drawn from humanities areas such as history, philosophy, religion, languages and literature, or humanities-informed composition and writing skills. Under Section 3(a) of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, as amended, “The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.”
The Humanities Initiatives programs support activities such as:
- Curriculum development
- developing and/or revising a set of courses (e.g., general education courses, honors courses or programs, capstone courses)
- creating teaching materials (e.g., course modules, readers, primary document collections, digital collections)
- planning and piloting a major, minor, or certificate program
- Student enrichment
- developing frameworks for sustainable humanities-focused internship programs
- creating ongoing opportunities for hands-on, place-based, or experiential learning
- designing programs or curricular innovations that help students understand the relevance of humanities education and make connections between the humanities, careers, and students’ lives after college
- Faculty development
- constructing pedagogy or curriculum through shared reading programs, faculty workshops, or other professional learning activities
- organizing a series of guest speakers for faculty and community audiences
- Partnerships
- creating bridge programs or dual enrollment programs between high school and college, or between community colleges and four-year institutions
- collaborating with museums, libraries, or other community organizations to create classroom materials
- producing humanities programming for students and community members
- Curriculum development
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[Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood] Parenting Education, Early Childhood Welfare,
or Early Childhood Education and Play Grant
https://earlychildhoodfoundation.org/#program-guidelines
DEADLINE: May 31, 2025 (Letter of Intent)
The Foundation’s goal is to provide seed money to implement those imaginative proposals that exhibit the greatest chance of improving the lives of young children, on a national scale. Because of the Foundation’s limited funding capability, it seeks to maximize a grant's potential impact.
The Foundation provides funding in the following areas:
- Parenting Education: To help parents create nurturing environments for their children, we support programs that teach parents about developmental psychology, cultural child rearing differences, pedagogy, issues of health, prenatal care and diet, as well as programs which provide both cognitive and emotional support to parents.
- Early Childhood Welfare: Providing a safe and nurturing environment is essential as is imparting the skills of social living in a culturally diverse world. Therefore, the Foundation supports projects that seek to perfect child rearing practices and to identify models that can provide creative, caring environments in which all young children thrive.
- Early Childhood Education and Play: We seek to improve the quality of both early childhood teaching and learning, through the development of innovative curricula and research based pedagogical standards, as well as the design of imaginative play materials and learning environments.
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[National Institutes of Health] Nutrition Obesity Research Centers (P30 Clinical Trial
Optional)
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-25-007.html
DEADLINE: June 10, 2025
This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) invites applications from institutions/organizations that propose to establish core centers that are part of an integrated and existing program of nutrition and/or obesity research. The Nutrition Obesity Research Centers (NORC) program is designed to support and enhance the national research effort in nutrition and obesity. NORCs support three primary research-related activities: Research Core services, a Pilot and Feasibility (P and F) program, and an Enrichment program. All activities pursued by Nutrition Obesity Research Centers are designed to enhance the efficiency, productivity, effectiveness, and multidisciplinary nature of research in nutrition and obesity.
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[U.S. Department of Transportation] Safe Streets and Roads for All
https://www.transportation.gov/grants/SS4A
DEADLINE: June 26, 2025
The SS4A program supports the development of a comprehensive safety action plan (referred to as an “Action Plan”) that identifies the most significant roadway safety concerns in a community and the implementation of projects and strategies to address roadway safety issues. Action Plans are the foundation of the SS4A grant program.
SS4A requires an eligible Action Plan be in place before applying to implement projects and strategies.
The SS4A program provides funding for two types of grants: Planning and Demonstration Grants and Implementation Grants.
Planning and Demonstration Grants:
Planning and Demonstration Grants provide Federal funds to develop, complete, or supplement an Action Plan. The goal of an Action Plan is to develop a holistic, well-defined strategy to prevent roadway fatalities and serious injuries in a locality, Tribal area, or region.
Planning and Demonstration Grants also fund supplemental planning activities in support of an Action Plan and demonstration activities in support of an Action Plan.
Implementation Grants:
Implementation Grants provide Federal funds to implement projects and strategies identified in an Action Plan to address a roadway safety problem. Eligible projects and strategies can be infrastructural, behavioral, and/or operational activities.
Implementation Grants may also include supplemental planning and demonstration activities to inform an existing Action Plan, and project-level planning, design, and development activities.
Applicants must have an eligible comprehensive safety action plan (referred to as an “Action Plan”) to apply for an Implementation Grant.
New in FY24, potential Implementation Grant applicants could submit their Action Plan(s) for pre-application review so that USDOT may affirm their eligibility to apply for an Implementation Grant.
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[William T. Grant Foundation] Research Grants on Reducing Inequality
https://wtgrantfoundation.org/funding/research-grants-on-reducing-inequality
DEADLINE: May 7, 2025
This program supports research to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5-25 in the United States. We prioritize studies that aim to reduce inequalities that exist along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status, language minority status, or immigrant origins.