Request for Proposals: Genetics Education Research Program
American Society of Human Genetics Genetics Education Research Program (GERP)
The Grant Program
Promoting Genetic Literacy in Teachers and Students
The purpose of the Genetics Education Research Program is to support proposals for investigating research questions related to genetics education, grades 7-20.
We fund projects that promote:
Teacher development: knowledge and training
Student learning and knowledge gain
Activity creation and assessment
Development and evaluation of assessment tools
Analysis of the impact of pedagogy
We give priority to projects that:
Have strong assessment strategies
Collect and report empirical data
Have broad impact across multiple curricula
Address misconceptions in genetics
Projects that address and correct specific misconceptions in genetics (student and/or teacher misconceptions)
Creative ways in which to teach about complex traits
The Application Process
Request for Proposals
The ASHG invites proposals, under an annual, competitive RFP process and awards grants to promote and strengthen genetic literacy in grades 7-20, for student populations and/or teachers.
Eligible Applicants
Applicants (and mentors, if applicable) must be ASHG members who are current on their dues. They must be affiliated with a non-profit organization that engages in educational research, and they must have adequate institutional infrastructure to manage the grant professionally. Applications may originate with established investigators (e.g., current PIs) or with trainees (e.g., graduate students or postdocs), as long as they have the support of their mentor.
ASHG will fund one annual grant not to exceed $10,000. Funds may be used over a two-year period.
Application Procedures and Content
Please submit an application containing all of the items specified below. Applications may be mailed to:
Education Department
Attn. GERP
The American Society of Human Genetics
9650 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20814
or sent as an attachment in an e-mail to: mdougherty@ashg.org
Please include all of the following:
Cover letter
Narrative: no more than five pages using 11-point font and one-inch margins
Project description
Statement of problem
Goals and objectives
Target population
Project activity(ies)
Assessment strategy
Project budget: Two pages: one-page Excel and one-page justification.
CVs for the PI and key staff: two-page maximum per individual
Description of organization and statement of support: one-page maximum
All research involving human subjects requires IRB approval prior to release of funds.
Project Evaluation
All proposals should include a sound plan for evaluation. Proposals of a purely exploratory nature, with no means of evaluating specific outcomes, are not eligible for funding, nor are projects that seek support only to teach new content or current content in a new way. Proposals involving teaching are eligible provided they assess specific and measurable change, for example, measuring changes in student learning, attitudes toward genetics, or similar. Proposals involving teacher learning, teacher knowledge gain, and teacher attitudes toward genetics are also eligible.
Proposals that seek supplementary funding, for example, to extend or bolster support for a graduate student engaged in current research may be eligible provided the research is deemed meritorious and pending availability of funds. Proposals that uniquely target the topic of the solicitation will receive highest priority. Novel research projects that propose ASHG support as part of a larger, combined funding package will be eligible as long as the topic of the solicitation features prominently in the research.
Grant Review Process
A subset of the Information & Education (I&E) Committee will review proposals, make selections, and forward recommendations to the full I&E Committee for approval. During initial review, additional reviewers may be contacted as needed.
I&E (through the ASHG Director of Education) will submit the top selection to the Executive Committee of the ASHG Board of Directors for final approval.
Review criteria will include but not be limited to:
Quality of assessment
Reasonableness of budget
Reasonableness of project scope
Qualifications of the PI
Potential impact of the project
Timeline
Deadline for 2012 proposals: May 18, 2012
Announcement of award: August 2012
