Newsletter
Volume 29 | 2006 | Number 2
Activities of the Science Policy and Research Board
By Dr. Kathryn Saunders
Science Policy and Research Board Coordinator
The Science Policy and Research Board has several standing functions and two current initiatives meant to provide information on federal research funding to ABA members.
One standing function is to maintain ties with The Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences (FBCPS). The Federation advocates for research in the behavioral sciences at the federal level, monitors and communicates policy changes of importance to scientists, and coordinates several congressional briefings per year. The briefings are meant to show congressional staff the value of research in the social and behavioral sciences. ABA sends a delegate to the annual meeting each December, which puts us at the table with other premier organizations in academic psychology. The current delegate is Kate Saunders. ABA members are eligible to receive weekly summaries of the Federation’s activities and updates on legislative activities that affect funding in the behavioral sciences. Visit the Federation’s web page at www.thefederationonline.org and see Executive Director Barb Wanchisen’s article in this newsletter issue.
A second standing function is to send a delegate to the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care International (AAALAC). Over 600 programs in 21 countries have been accredited by AAALAC. Steve Dworkin is ABA’s delegate to AAALAC.
During the past year, the Science Board initiated two activities designed to provide information about federal funding for research to ABA members: arranging a 2006 ABA convention symposium on the peer-review process at National Institutes of Health (NIH) and beginning a listing of federal grants obtained by ABA members.
The Board plans to arrange two to three symposia or workshops on federal funding for the ABA convention each year. The presentations would be like those at the funding symposium that occurred in Chicago in February 2005, but would occur on a rotating basis across several years. We welcome suggestions as to topics. Knowing how grants are reviewed is critical to funding success; therefore the 2006 funding symposium was “An Insiders’ Look at NIH Peer Review.” Participants included Tom Tatham, of the NIH Center for Scientific Review, and three other ABA members who have both received NIH funding and served on NIH review panels: Richard Serna, Carol Pilgrim, and Kate Saunders. In addition to providing an overview of the grant review process, the presenters conducted a very realistic simulated review of a behavior-analytic proposal for an R01.
Two other symposia related to federal funding were on the program. ABA members with research interests related to special education populations were pleased to find that officials from the Institute for Educational Sciences, Ed Kamen’enui and Partricia Gonzalez, initiated a symposium regarding funding information from this new institute. In addition, the Professional Development Series arranged a panel discussion on federal funding opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral students.
An important goal for this past year was to begin developing an ABA Web page that contains information about the federal funding for research ABA members have obtained and information about postdoctoral training opportunities. In doing so, we hope to raise the profile of federally-funded research within ABA, to highlight the research interests of funded laboratories, and to serve as an information resource for early career investigators. The project got rolling with a request for members to submit funding information. To date, we have received information from 44 members who report approximately 95 grants and 5 postdoctoral training opportunities. We are in the process of developing a format for presenting this information on the Web.