The University of Central Florida’s Office of Research will offer a National Institutes of Health workshop virtually next week to help researchers from across Florida pursuing NIH funding for their research projects.
“This conference aims to provide researchers with the necessary information to successfully collaborate within and across institutions, navigate their NIH proposals, and address both practical and conceptual aspects that are important to the proposal-writing process,” says April Torre, an outreach coordinator with UCF’s Office of Research, Research Development, who is helping organize the event.
The workshop is an example of the ongoing services the Office of Research provides each year. However, the organizing team had to quickly adjust its workshops because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead of being-in person, the free event will be held via Zoom on Tuesday, May 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Registration is online and closes May 1.
Torre says there are currently 101 people registered from 10 different research institutions.
The keynote speaker will be Tatjana Atanasijevic, the scientific program manager with NIH’s Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Division of Applied Science and Technology.
The agenda also includes discussions from principal investigators who are receiving research funding from NIH, as well as research administrators at UCF, and the chief executive officer of Causaly, a semantic search and visualization platform for biomedical evidence.
“This workshop provides an opportunity to ask questions to the NIH representative and principal investigator speakers, prepare more competitive proposals to NIH, and connect with colleagues from across the state,” Torre says.
UCF’s Office of Research, Research Development holds workshops throughout the year that focus on a variety of topics to help researchers secure funding. For example, UCF hosted a virtual workshop in early April on U.S. Department of Education funding with awarded PIs sharing their successful experiences.
Since 2016, researchers at UCF have increased the overall funding awarded by NIH from $7.5 million to more than $15.4 million to date in 2020.
