Rigorous experimental procedures and transparent reporting of research results are vital to the continued success of the biomedical enterprise at both the preclinical and the clinical levels. See below for more information on efforts to catalyze communities of champions to promote rigorous research.
Rigor Champions
As described in this publication, enthusiastic individuals ("champions") who want to drive improvements in rigorous research practices, transparent reporting, and comprehensive education may come from all career stages and sectors, including undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, researchers, educators, institutional leaders, journal editors, scientific societies, private industry, and funders. We encourage champions to organize themselves into communities to effect change within and across scientific institutions, for example through this recent workshop. These communities can share resources and best practices, propose changes to current training and research infrastructure, build new tools to support better research practices, and support rigorous research on a daily basis.
Check out available rigor and transparency resources to that may be helpful in efforts to champion rigor. If you are interested in learning more about rigor champions, you can also email us at RigorChampions@nih.gov.
*Opportunities for Rigor Champions*
Learn more from this 2023 NINDS Director's Message!
Notice of Funding Opportunity (Active):
NINDS Sustainable Transformation of Institutional Research Rigor (STIRR) Program (RC2 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
This funding opportunity aims to support the establishment of programs to enhance research rigor and transparency practices within academic and research institutions to promote a culture of high-quality neuroscience research. Awards are intended to support the implementation of innovative programs, strategies, and approaches at the departmental, inter-departmental, or equivalent intra-institutional entity level.
- STIRR Frequently Asked Questions
- Due date: October 17, 2025
Challenge (Active):
NINDS Early-Career Rigor Champions Prize
This new iteration of the NINDS Rigor Champions Prize is focused on early-career scientists who are promoting enhanced research rigor and raising awareness of these practices for others. Activities can be on a small scale or larger one, and they can be driven by individuals or small teams of up to three early-career scientists. To enter, the Participant(s) will respond to six short essay prompts about their activities to champion and promote rigorous research practices.
- NINDS Early-Career Rigor Champions Prize Informational Video
- NINDS Rigor Champions Prize website
- Due date: May 2, 2025
Example Activity:
Rigor Icons to Maximize Transparency in Presentations
Scientific meetings are an important venue for disseminating findings, but space and time for experimental design details is often limited. Thus, to facilitate increased transparency in scientific presentations, we propose the use of rigor icons to quickly and easily convey the experimental design details. Rigor icons are simple symbols that can be added to figures to easily convey important experimental design details in scientific presentations.