BPC seeks to fulfill its mission of promoting innovative population research through external funding. Because we are funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Child Health and Development (NICHD), facilitating grants from NICHD is our top priority. The second level priority is other NIH funding. The third level is funding from government and notable foundations.

This section provides a starting place and resources to enable our affiliates to submit successful grant applications. Get started by perusing the following links.

BPC's guide to NICHD's Demographic and Behavioral Studies Branch (DBSB).

NIH Office of Extramural Research : The starting place for learning about grants

Outline of types of grants available (R01, R03, etc.)

Parent announcements for unsolicited applications. That is, the starting place for grants when not responding to a specific program or announcement. These are known as unsolicited or investigator-initiated proposals.

Standard dates Grant applications typically follow a set of standard dates for submission deadline, but always read the announcement carefully for deadlines, including whether a Letter of Intent (LOI) is required.

Glossary of terms

eRa Commons: NIH has an electronic registration of Principal Investigator applicants, known as eRA Commons. At Cal you must ask our Office of Sponsored Research to register you.

Interested in applying for an NIH? You will want to contact the correct program officer for consideration of your idea. They like emails. If you are interested in applying for funding, please send the program officer a 1-page description of your proposed project including (1) the name of the funding announcement/program you are interested in; (2) your research topic and primary research question(s); (3) your theoretical perspective; (4) your specific hypotheses; (5) your methodology and dependent and independent variables; and (6) a time line.

See David Card's special video on negotiating the NIH world of R01 and R03 grants. You need RealPlayer to view this video. Download free RealPlayer software for PCs and for Macs