Research Alert | July 26, 2012

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Requirement for Financial Conflict of Interest Disclosures

The University of Texas System has approved our revised Objectivity in Research policy, which will be effective Aug. 23, 2012. The Conflict of Interest (CoI) web page contains a link to the “Draft” policy that will be implemented.

The revised policy contains significant revisions to the previous policy and incorporates changes that meet updated federal requirements governing disclosure and reporting of Financial Conflicts of Interest. As we have said, the new policy will affect all individuals who are responsible for the design, conduct or reporting of research.

The revised policy requires completion of Conflict of Interest (CoI) training by all individuals who are responsible for the design, conduct or reporting of research at least every four years. A web-based training module has been implemented and training may be completed at any time.

Upon completion of CoI training, all affected researchers will be required to complete a web-based Financial Interest Disclosure (FID) form that is in the final, stages of testing. Additionally, the revised policy requires completion of the FID form annually or whenever changes occur.

For information on the new PHS policy, see the list of Frequently Asked Questions at the National Institutes of Health website. At the university, the Office of Research Support is providing updates on its Conflict of Interest page.

Research Opportunities

Important University Research Deadlines

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The University of Texas at Austin Stimulus Package Web page is online.

Funding Sources

Department of Commerce

NOAA-Sea Grant
Gulf of Mexico Hydrological Restoration Inventory and Prioritization Project
Deadline: Aug. 17, 2012

Department of Defense

DOD Legacy Program (PDF)
Deadlines: Pre-proposal, Aug. 30, 2012; Proposal, Nov. 8, 2012

Advanced Computing Initiative
Deadline: Sept. 12, 2012

Special Program Announcement for Office of Naval Research: DARPA/ONR Field-Reversible Thermal Connector (RevCon) Challenge II
Deadline: Nov. 28, 2012

Department of Energy

Early Career Research Program
Deadlines: Pre-application, Sept. 6, 2012; Applications, Nov. 26, 2012

National Institutes of Health

NIH Director's Early Independence Awards
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, Dec. 30, 2012; Application, Jan. 30, 2013

Physical activity and weight control interventions among cancer survivors: Effects on biomarkers of prognosis and survival
Deadlines: Application, Oct. 5, 2012

Mechanism for Time-Sensitive Research Opportunities in Environmental Health Sciences
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, Aug. 6, 2012; Application, Aug. 20, 2012

National Institute of Corrections

Cooperative Agreement - Dosage-Based Probation as an Effective Intervention
Deadline: Aug. 6, 2012

National Science Foundation

Innovation Corps - Regional Node Program
Deadline: Oct. 19, 2012

Geophysics
Deadline: Dec. 5, 2012

Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences: Investigator-initiated research projects
Deadline: Jan. 28, 2013

Ocean Technology and Interdisciplinary Coordination
Deadline: Feb. 15, 2013

Arts, Humanities and Culture

Department of State
Establishment of a University Partnership in Islamic Culture and Civilization with the University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan
Deadline: Aug. 24, 2012

George C. Marshall Foundation
George C. Marshall/Baruch Fellowships
Deadline: Oct. 15, 2012

Other Funding Opportunities

American Federation for Aging Research
Ellison Medical Foundation/AFAR Postdoctoral Fellows in Aging Research Program
Deadline: Letter of Intent, Oct. 17, 2012

Research Prizes and Honors

[Have you or a colleague won a research-related prize or honor? Let the Research Alert know.]

ICES Researcher Wins Computational Mechanics Award

Dominik Schillinger, a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES), has won the John Argyris Award for best paper by a young researcher in the field of Computational Mechanics. The annual award is given by the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM).

With Prof. Thomas Hughes of ICES, Schillinger served on a project team and published the paper, "An Isogeometric Design-through-analysis Methodology based on Adaptive Hierarchical Refinement of NURBS, Immersed Boundary Methods, and T-spline CAD Surfaces" in the journal Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.

News and Information

Research Grants Coming Soon

Funding will soon be available for 2012-2013 Research Grants, Special Research Grants, Subvention Grants, and Undergraduate Research Fellowships.

• RESEARCH GRANTS for 2012-2013 in amounts up to $6,000 are awarded to tenured and tenure-track faculty in a single competition. The application deadline is Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012.
• SPECIAL RESEARCH GRANTS for 2012-2013 in amounts up to $750 are awarded to tenured and tenure-track faculty throughout the year until funds are expended. Applications will be accepted beginning Monday, Sept. 3, 2012.
• SUBVENTION GRANTS for 2012-2013 are awarded to tenured and tenure-track faculty authors in a single competition. Preference will be given to assistant and associate professors. Please visit our website for detailed qualifications. The application deadline is Monday, Sept. 10, 2012.
• UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS in amounts up to $1,000 are awarded through two competitions, Fall 2012 and Spring 2013. Faculty and full-time research scientists and engineers may supervise undergraduate students in independent research projects. The deadline for the Fall 2012 competition is Monday, Sept. 17, 2012. The Spring 2013 deadline will be Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013.

Information and applications for all programs are available at the Vice President for Research website. Early application is recommended. Please direct questions to Liza Scarborough or 471-2877.

Quoted-UT Researchers in the News

New York Times
July 22, 2012
HEADLINE: The New Community College Try

(Kay McClenney, director of the university's Community College Leadership Program, was quoted in an article about a new community college in New York City.)

All students will take the same classes for the first year, though they will be separated into two levels of math. At other schools, students who need extra help can get it from skills labs, peer study groups, tutors or advisers. Here, none of those resources will be optional. ''This is absolutely crucial because so many students appear at the door of community colleges completely clueless about what is required of them, or available to them,'' said Ms. McClenney of the University of Texas. ''They don't know they need to do work outside of class. They don't take advantage of tutoring and mentoring services. They don't know about peer study groups or interacting with faculty.''

Research Project

Collaborative Research: Contentious Land Change in the Eastern Amazon

RESEARCHER: Eugenio Arima, assistant professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, principal investigator
AGENCY: National Science Foundation
AMOUNT: $34,432

Land-change research has identified a number of factors that influence deforestation and forest fragmentation, including fiscal incentives, infrastructure development, migration and household processes. This research project will expand the explanatory power of land-change research by considering a factor that has not been adequately studied, namely social processes stemming from unequal access to land resources. The project's investigators will broaden the concept of land-change agency or responsibility, often deployed uncritically in land-change research, by considering social actions and reactions occurring over decadal time periods and by actors who do not always behave in economically "rational" ways.

The researchers will develop a comprehensive perspective on land change for southeastern Para state of northern Brazil, a laboratory and battleground for myriad Amazonian development initiatives. To characterize land change between 1984 and 2010, including deforestation, reforestation, and forest patch dynamics, the researchers will employ remote sensing and landscape ecology techniques.

To examine the social process aspects of land change, especially contention over land, they will conduct a thorough news media analysis covering more than 5,000 news accounts of conflict. They will complement this archival research with field interviews and intensive case studies involving at least five landowners and many local key informants. By mixing field interviews with remote sensing and landscape ecology, the researchers will treat Amazonian land change as an integrated system of processes, not just a singular process of deforestation driven by "rational" economic decisions.

The investigators expect to find that properties that play host to contention displayed greater overall deforestation and increased (or different) forest fragmentation patterns than for properties that were not contested. The researchers will seek to ascertain whether contention has led to a forest structure shift, creating a more complex forest landscape with negative implications for the region's ecology.

The Research Alert is an electronic publication from the Office of the Vice President for Research at The University of Texas at Austin. It includes news of research honors and awards, news of research programs and deadlines, researchers quoted in news media, a listing of funding opportunities and a look at a current research project. It is available by e-mail and on the Web.

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