Office of Research and Creative Scholarship Newsletter

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Points with Paul

Looking Forward

Dear Colleagues,

As I begin my role as the Interim Vice President for Research, I am honored to support UM’s research enterprise and excited about the year ahead. The University of Montana’s commitment to innovation, discovery, and creative scholarship has created opportunities for faculty, students, and staff to make meaningful contributions and become leaders in our rapidly evolving world.

Research at UM is vibrant, and the people, productivity, and energy across campus not only help our institution break new ground but make UM an enjoyable and inspiring place to work. As we look ahead, I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight a few of my goals and priorities for the year.

Research is changing. As ever, our goal is to remain on the forefront of both discovery and opportunity, but the challenges before us are significant. We must navigate a shifting landscape of funding priorities and regulatory changes that create uncertainty and, in some cases, may not align with UM’s many areas of research strength.

At the federal level, changing funding priorities, delayed award decisions, and proposed rule changes give all of us reason for concern. Yet opportunity still exists. Our team in ORCS will work to position UM for success regardless of the challenges ahead. We’re monitoring developments, identifying funding opportunities, and creating new avenues of support whenever possible.

ORCS remains committed to supporting researchers throughout the lifecycle of the grant, from initial concept development to proposal submission, award management, and final reporting. Last year, we reviewed all our internal processes, identified areas for improvement, and began implementing changes.

We’re also investigating technological advancements and tools to reduce repetitive administrative tasks and allow our staff to focus on what matters most: supporting PI’s on developing stronger proposals, navigating the submission process, and managing their awards.

All this work depends on collaboration, and ORCS needs your participation and engagement. Faculty input on challenges and opportunities is invaluable, and we strive to make that easy and meaningful. In the coming year, we’ll offer an ORCS Forum each semester, host ORCS Coffee Hours in departments around campus, and convene a strategic planning committee to help guide the future of research at UM. We will also create new opportunities for colleagues from across disciplines to connect, identify synergistic research questions, and build dynamic partnerships that are well positioned to compete for external funding.

While the challenges are significant, universities are defined by their creativity, resilience, and persistence. These are the very qualities we cultivate in our students and that continue to drive discovery and transform our world. By working together, we can navigate uncertainty, strengthen UM’s research enterprise, and realize our collective potential to change lives through research.

Funding & Other Opportunities

Early Independence (NIH/OD), RFA-RM-27-004  

Deadline: September 10, 2026

Webinar: July 13, 2026, 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM ET Register today!

The National Institutes of Health’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program has released four funding opportunities for the FY27 NIH Director’s Awards. These awards support exceptionally creative researchers who pursue highly innovative and bold approaches to address major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research across the NIH mission.

As part of an ongoing effort to ensure broad awareness of NIH funding opportunities, we are reaching out directly to research offices at institutions whose researchers may benefit from this program.

Among these awards is the Early Independence Award, which enables rigorous and promising early career investigators to bypass the traditional postdoctoral training period and launch an independent research career. This prestigious award is for applicants who recently completed or will soon complete their doctoral degree or clinical training. Importantly, to be eligible, the applicant must have a guaranteed independent research position at the submitting institution and must be able to begin independent research by the project start date. (This year, that will be September 2027.) Any research topic relevant to the broad mission of NIH is welcome, including basic, clinical, or translational work. The primary requirements are that the research is highly innovative and has the potential for unusually broad impact.

Please see the resources below for more information about this exciting opportunity.

• Successful sample applications
• Application and Award Guide
• FAQs
• NIH grant application resources
• Recorded webinar (will be posted following the live event)

We invite your institution to explore this opportunity and to share it with any interested, eligible applicants.

Any further questions can be submitted to EarlyIndependence@od.nih.gov.

Montana INBRE Due Date Change

For fall 2026 we anticipate the following dates for the Montana INBRE Faculty Research RFP:

• Grant Year: May 1, 2027 - April 30, 2028
• Issue Date: July 2026
• Letter of Intent Due: early October 2026
• Full Proposal Due: November 1, 2026

The updated RFP will be released soon. For questions, contact Sarah Codd, INBRE Program Coordinator

Montana Biotechnology Center (BIOTECH) Pilot Project

Deadline: rolling until funds are expended on August 31^st, whichever occurs first

BIOTECH's Prototyping and Characterization Core (PROTECH) is pleased to announce a 2026 Pilot Project funding opportunity to promote innovative use of its Nanoscribe Quantum X Bio 2-photon polymerization (2PP) 3D printer.

Pilot project awards ranging from $4,000 to $10,000 are available to support projects that utilize this state-of-the-art technology. Eligible applicants include faculty, researchers, staff, postdoctoral researchers, and students at the University of Montana and Missoula College. Student applications must be submitted with a faculty sponsor.

BIOTECH invites proposals that leverage the Quantum X Bio to design, develop, prototype, and validate innovative applications across a broad range of disciplines, including biotechnology, biomedical science, engineering, the physical and life sciences, the arts, physical therapy, and other fields where advanced micro- and meso-scale 3D printing can advance discovery, creativity, or innovation.

Please see the website for complete details.

For questions, contact PROTECH's Core Manager Joachim Veit.

NEH: Scholarly Editions and Translations

Deadline: September 16, 2026

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Research is accepting applications for the Scholarly Editions and Translations program. The purpose of this program supports collaborative teams who edit, annotate, and translate foundational humanities texts that are vital to generating new scholarship but are not available in adequate editions or translations. 

This year's competition is limited to projects on American history and culture or Western civilization. Applications must focus on topics in the history and culture of the United States in any period from the Colonial Era to the present, or topics in Western civilization from antiquity to the present.

Read the entire announcement for details.

NEH: Collaborative Research

Deadline: September 16, 2026

The Collaborative Research program aims to advance knowledge in the humanities by supporting teams of scholars working on a project leading to an interpretive product. Teams may propose research in a single field of study or interdisciplinary work. NEH encourages projects that incorporate multiple points of view and pursue new avenues of inquiry.

Collaborators may come from one or more institutions. NEH encourages partnerships with researchers in the natural and social sciences, but projects must focus on humanistic content and employ humanistic methods. International collaboration is welcome, but scholars at U.S. institutions must contribute significantly to the project.

Proposed projects must lead to a tangible and sustainable output, such as a coauthored book, edited volume, themed issue of a peer-reviewed journal, digital publication, or scholarly website. Project outputs must incorporate collaboration and interpretation to address significant humanities research questions. Applications must focus on the history and culture of the United States or Western civilization.

Read the entire announcement for details.

Funding Reminders

Follow links for complete details

Joint DMS/NIGMS Initiative to Support Research at the Interface of the Biological and Mathematical Sciences (DMS/NIGMS) 

Deadline: September 1^st-September 18^th 

Read the entire solicitation here.

Mathematical Biology 

Deadline: October 1-October 14, 2026 

Read the entire solicitation here.

Intervention Research to Improve Native American Health (R34 Clinical Trial Optional) 

Deadline: October 21, 2026 

Read the entire solicitation here. 

Research and Creative Scholarship Stories

UM Public Health Researcher Wins NIH Rising Star Award 

Dr. Ethan Walker, a researcher in the University of Montana’s Center for Population Health Research, has been named a 2026 “Rising Star” for his work studying links between air pollution and cardiovascular health. 

Read the entire story on UM News.

UM Research Studies How Children Decide Who and What to Trust 

Children trust confident speakers, even ones who've been wrong before. UM’s Dr. Rachel Severson and UM alumna Dr. Shailee Woodard found critical thinking about information begins to develop by age 8. 

Read the entire story on UM News.

Steve Running

The University of Montana’s own Steve Running is the 41^st most cited climate scientist in the world. Now an emeritus regents professor of ecology at the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, Steve is a global expert in ecosystem monitoring and was part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

News & Updates

NIH Compliance Requirement: Foreign Components

The Office of Sponsored Programs wants to bring your attention to a key NIH compliance requirement for all investigators with active NIH awards. NOT-OD-26-084 reminds the extramural community of NIH's longstanding definition of foreign components. While NIH has increased its oversight of foreign collaborations, it has not expanded the definition of foreign components.

Here is what this means for your NIH-funded work.

As outlined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, a foreign component is the performance of any significant scientific element or segment of a project outside of the United States, either by the recipient or by a researcher employed by a foreign organization, whether or not grant funds are expended.

Activities that meet this definition include, but are not limited to:

• The involvement of human subjects or animals at a foreign site.
• Extensive foreign travel by recipient project staff for the purpose of data collection, surveying, sampling, and similar activities.
• Any activity of the recipient that may have an impact on U.S. foreign policy through involvement in the affairs or environment of a foreign country.

Other grant-related activities that may rise to the level of a foreign component include:

• Collaborations with investigators at a foreign site anticipated to result in co-authorship, use of facilities, or instrumentation at a foreign site
• Receipt of financial support or resources from a foreign entity.

Note: foreign travel for consultation is not considered a foreign component. 

NIH requires that prior approval for a foreign component is in place for any activity or other grant-related activity outlined above.

Does a Foreign Co-author Automatically Create a Foreign Component?
This has been a common question, and NIH addressed it directly. Most instances of co-authorship represent a foreign component. NIH recognizes, however, that certain contributions are so minor that they do not constitute an actual collaboration. For example, the provision of a single reagent might not be a collaboration but could result in co-authorship. In addition, occasionally co-authorship arises through indirect association, such as when an NIH-funded researcher and a foreign researcher both independently work with the same domestic collaborator but only learn of this fact when a manuscript is prepared.

The bottom line: In all cases, NIH recipients should report foreign co-authorship to the funding Institute or Center as soon as they are aware of it to determine what steps, if any, need to be taken.

Check Your NOFO — Some Awards Prohibit Foreign Components
Recipients must pay close attention to the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), which outlines whether foreign components are permitted. For awards that are issued from NOFOs that do not allow foreign components, publications and other research projects generally should not include foreign co-authors or collaborators. IDeA program grants are a notable example of awards with this restriction — relevant to many UM investigators.

Accurate Grant Citations and Affiliations Matter
NOT-OD-26-084 also includes two important reminders about publications:

• Attributing publications to grants that did not actually support the described work does not align with NIH policy and could inadvertently result in compliance actions. If the NIH grant only supported a specific part of the published work, this should be made clear in the grant citation in the publication and in the Research Performance Progress Report.
• NIH-funded investigators should take care to accurately list their affiliations on publications to reflect where they performed the NIH-funded work rather than using their current address if it is different from the performance site. 

NIH: Senior/Key Personnel

Per NIH Notice NOT-OD-26-018, NIH now requires individuals serving as senior/key personnel to certify annually that their supporting information is current, accurate, and complete, and that they are not a party to a Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Program (MFTRP) at the time of submission and subsequent years on the RPPRs. This applies to all senior/key personnel identified in Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPRs).

A new MFTRP Certification form is now available on the OSP Forms webpage. For any NIH RPPR being prepared, each senior/key person should complete and sign this form, which must then be uploaded as a flattened PDF to Section G.1 of the RPPR.

The certification file for each senior/key person must be named MFTRPcert_[PI/Senior/Key Personnel Name].pdf

Events

Free Virtual Webinar Hosted by the NSF SECURE Center

Tuesday, July 14 at 12:00 PM MDT

The BIOSECURE Act, enacted as part of the FY2026 NDAA, signals growing bipartisan concern over national security risks associated with foreign biotechnology companies and sensitive biological data. With implementation already underway and full enforcement approaching, research institutions should begin preparing now for potential impacts on research operations.

This webinar will examine key provisions of the law, recent additions to the Department of Defense’s Section 1260H list—including WuXi AppTec, Complete Genomics, and Novogene—and discuss broader policy developments, including recommendations from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology and related legislative activity.

Registration is open via this link.

For general questions or more information, please email the webinar coordinator, Grace Ivins at Grace.Ivins@colostate.edu

Limited Submissions

When a program announcement limits the number of proposals that we may submit, we have an internal process to ensure that we do not exceed that limit. If you're interested in one of the following opportunities, follow the instructions to submit a concept by the Internal Deadline indicated below. PIs must confirm eligibility prior to submission.

Note that submission instructions have changed. Rather than sending to Katherine via email, please submit the concept via this submission form.

New This Week

EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (FEC) (NSF 24-573)

• Internal Deadline: August 10, 2026
• Funder Deadline: December 15, 2026 (letter of intent); January 26, 2027 (full proposal)

NIH Modern Equipment for Shared-use Biomedical Research Facilities: Advancing Research-Related Operations

• Internal Deadline: August 10, 2026
• Funder Deadline: September 25, 2026

Currently Open

2027 Searle Scholars Program

• Internal Deadline: July 15, 2026
• Funder Deadline: September 30, 2026

New Awards for June 2026

Grants

• Elizabeth Barrs, Mansfield Center, Civics Bees: 2025-26 and 2026-27, funded by Montana Historical Society, $40,000.

• Patrick Boise, School of Public and Community Health, Crisis Pregnancy Centers in MT, funded by Bridgercare, $11,000.

• Anisa Goforth, Department of Psychology, Dissertation Grant Award Program, funded by Society for the Study of School Psychology, $4,997.

• Katie Holick, Skaggs Institute for Health Innovation, VR for Indigenous Healthcare, funded by National Institutes of Health through MSU INBRE, $99,052.

• Yoichiro Kanno, College of Forestry and Conservation, Coldwater Research & Conservation, funded by the University of Montana Foundation, $72,857.

• Michael Legg, Montana Repertory Theatre, AISC Residencies FY27, funded by National Endowment for the Arts through the MT Arts Council, $9,000.

• Paul Lukacs, Office of Research and Creative Scholarship, Graduate Research Fellowship Program, funded by National Science Foundation, $142,967.

• Paul Lukacs, Office of Research and Creative Scholarship, INBRE Scholars 2026, funded by National Institutes of Health through MSU INBRE, $16,979.

• Julia Mazzarella, School of Physical Therapy, Hippotherapy for ND, funded by National Institutes of Health through MSU INBRE, $147,000.

• Lucy Owen, Center for Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, Improving and Applying a Gaussian Process Regression Model of Human Brain Data, funded by National Institutes of Health through MSU INBRE, $138,455.

• Sarah Sells, Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, RMEF State Grant Program FY26, funded by Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, $50,000.

• Meg Traci, Rural Institute on Inclusive Communities, MT D&I Health Summit, funded by Administration for Community Living through the MT Council on Developmental Disabilities, $10,000.

• Christopher Vassallo, Center for Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, Novel Anti-Phage Defense Systems, funded by National Institutes of Health through MSU INBRE, $131,785.

Contracts

• William Gardner, College of Forestry and Conservation, Colorado Seed, funded by U.S. Department of Energy through UC Regents / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, $42,351.

• Carly Holman, Rural Institute on Inclusive Communities, RMC Toolkit Implementation, funded by National Institute for Children's Health Quality, $10,000.

• Jennifer Jones, O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, 2026 Riparian and Wetland AIM Sampling, funded by The Nature Conservancy, $18,293.

• Jennifer Thomsen, College of Forestry and Conservation, Glacier Survey, funded by National Park Conservation Association, $25,130.

• Allison Wilson, Institute for Early Childhood Education, Virtual Classroom-Learning Library, funded by MT Department of Public Health and Human Services, $40,000.

Cooperative Agreements

• Brady Allred, Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, Rangeland Analysis Platform Growth and Rate, funded by USDA Agricultural Research Service, $82,544.

• Lisa Gerloff, College of Forestry and Conservation, Timber Strike Team, funded by USDA Forest Service, $85,105.86.

• Lisa Gerloff, College of Forestry and Conservation, R1 Reveg Strike Team, funded by USDA Forest Service, Northern Region, $41,496.42.

• Lisa Gerloff, College of Forestry and Conservation, NCF Resource Stewards, funded by USDA Forest Service, $29,580.

• Cara Nelson, College of Forestry and Conservation, Whitebark Pine Active Management, funded by USDA Forest Service, $40,000.

• Anna Noson, Institute on Ecosystems / Division of Biological Sciences, Avian Monitoring to Assess Biodiversity, funded by USDI Bureau of Land Management through The Nature Conservancy, $23,677.

• William Rice, College of Forestry and Conservation, Mapping National Lands, funded by USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, $128,097.

• Jennifer Thomsen, College of Forestry and Conservation, PST Visitor Use Management, funded by USDA Forest Service, $73,777.

The Funnies

We asked AI for a joke about NIH’s foreign components requirements. Here’s what we got.

At least your AI writing assistant won't trigger a foreign component review. It's never left the country. It's never been in one — or, strictly speaking, anywhere.