The NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) sponsored a session for CFS researchers to learn about relevant NIH funding opportunities.

NIH Meeting Targets CFS Researchers

On September 17, 2007, a handful of researchers gathered at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to take part in a Grantsmanship Workshop for Research on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. This one-day learning session was sponsored by the NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) in response to the CFIDS Association’s request made in a meeting with ORWH director Dr. Vivian Pinn and her colleague, Dr. Eleanor Hanna. In exploring ways to expand funding opportunities for CFS investigators in the tight fiscal environment, the idea for this meeting was conceived and Dr. Pinn committed to “make it happen.”

The Association’s president & CEO, Kim McCleary, and Drs. Nancy Klimas and Leonard Jason of the International Association for CFS/ME (IACFS/ME) were invited by Dr. Hanna to help plan the meeting, but the majority of the work was done by members of the Trans-NIH Working Group on CFS that has met for the past several years to keep abreast of advances in the field.

Working Group members representing more than a dozen of NIH’s individual institutes and offices helped develop the agenda and presentations that would inform participants about “best practices” in grant writing and highlight specific “Funding Opportunity Announcements” (FOAs) that match current directions in CFS research.

The move toward cross-cutting, multidisciplinary funding announcements was explained and discussed, as were changes in the process of reviewing grant applications. Speakers also focused on funding mechanisms that provide support for training new investigators and exploratory concepts. “Tricks of the trade” were readily shared, and Dr. James Baraniuk of Georgetown University gave an amusing talk detailing his own travails of securing, then losing, then regaining NIH support for his CFS studies.

Although the organizers (including the CFIDS Association) sent out multiple announcements to researchers, attendance was fairly sparse. Anticipating that travel costs and time might be a barrier to a convening a large audience, Dr. Hanna had arranged for the session to be videotaped and a recording and associated printed materials will be posted to the ORWH website. We will help promote the availability of this information to current and prospective CFS researchers and will encourage applicants to familiarize themselves with the large number of funding opportunities relevant to CFS, even though the term CFS may not appear in the description.

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