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Guidelines for Support of Scientific Meetings by NCCAM:
Use of R13/U13 Mechanism
Date Posted: April, 2001
Date Revised: March, 2005
- Introduction
- Purpose
- General Procedures
- Eligibility
- Opportunities for Scientific Meetings
- Application Instructions
- Budget Guidelines
- Multiple Year Applications
- NCCAM Conference Grant Terms of Award
- NCCAM Conference Grant Contacts
Introduction
These guidelines are issued to announce NCCAM's participation in the R13/U13 mechanism supporting scientific meetings and to provide NCCAM-specific guidelines and staff contact information. This document contains no policy changes to the NIH guidelines issued in the NIH Guide on October 26, 2005. Applicants are encouraged to refer to the NIH Parent R13/U13 Funding Opportunity Announcement.
All applications seeking NCCAM support must comply with the NCCAM guidelines stated in this announcement. Applicants must obtain approval from NCCAM before submitting or resubmitting a conference grant application. Requests for permission to submit a conference grant application should be made no later than six weeks prior to the anticipated receipt date for the application.
Purpose
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognizes the value of supporting scientific meetings, conferences, and workshops that are relevant to its scientific mission and to public health. Support of these meetings is contingent on NCCAM interests and priorities as well as the level of financial investment that NCCAM determines is appropriate.
The guidelines presented here are general guidance for the development of applications requesting NCCAM support for scientific meetings. This document only applies to those conferences, workshops, or scientific meetings supported by NIH R13 grants or U13 cooperative agreements. It does not apply to those conferences, workshops, or scientific meetings sponsored or initiated by NIH and funded by contracts or by direct operating funds, or workshops conducted as an adjunct to scientific peer review group activities.
General Procedures
A scientific meeting is defined as a symposium, seminar, workshop or other organized, formal conference assembled to coordinate, exchange, and disseminate new scientific information or to explore or clarify a defined scientific research problem.
Organizers of scientific meetings must comply with the Guidelines on Inclusion of Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in NIH-Supported Conference Grants. Women, racial/ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, and other individuals who have been traditionally underrepresented in science must be appropriately included in all aspects of planning, organization, and implementation of NIH-sponsored and/or -supported meetings. "Appropriate" means representation based on the availability of scientists from these groups known to be working in a particular field of biomedical or behavioral research. If appropriate representation is not apparent, no award will be issued until program staff is assured of concerted efforts to ensure such representation.
Eligibility
A U.S. institution or organization, including an established scientific or professional society, is eligible to apply. An individual is not eligible to receive an award for the support of a scientific meeting.
Both domestic and international meetings may be supported; however, an international meeting can be supported only through the U.S. representative organization of an established international scientific or professional society.
Opportunities for Scientific Meetings
NCCAM is dedicated to exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science.
Consistent with this scientific commitment to expand the scientific understanding of complementary and alternative medical practices, the Center is interested in supporting scientific meetings, conferences, and workshops designed to focus attention on cutting edge, CAM-relevant research and to stimulate further research in the following general emphasis areas:
- Whole Medical Systems: These complete systems of theory and practice have evolved independent of and often prior to the conventional biomedical approach.
- Mind-Body Medicine: These employ a variety of techniques
designed to facilitate the mind's capacity to affect bodily function and symptoms. Only subsets of mind-body interventions are considered CAM.
- Biologically Based Practices: These include natural and biologically based practices, interventions, and products, many of which overlap with conventional medicine's use of dietary supplements.
- Manipulative and Body-Based Practices: These include methods that are based on manipulation and/or movement of the body.
- Energy Medicines: These therapies focus on either energy
fields originating within the body (biofields) or those from other
sources (electromagnetic fields).
In addition, primary consideration for support will be given to meetings focusing on "state-of-the-art" complementary, alternative, and integrated medicine topics where stimulation of further research and fostering of research collaboration are likely outcomes of the workshop or symposium.
NCCAM will not support meetings dedicated primarily to continuing medical education (CME) or clinical training (CAM or conventional) through the conference grant.
For updated and additional information regarding special areas of interest to NCCAM, prospective applicants are encouraged to refer to the NCCAM Web site.
NCCAM may support any application that is within its mission, interests, and guidelines, and which has been recommended for support through the customary NIH review processes.
When NCCAM determines there is sufficient need to have substantial program staff involvement in the planning and conduct of a scientific meeting, an R13 application will be administratively converted and funded as a cooperative agreement (U13). The Notice of Grant Award will cite specific terms and conditions of the award.
Application Instructions
Advance Permission: R13 applicants must have received NCCAM permission to submit the application prior to the receipt date/deadline. The request for permission to submit an application should include the dates, location, audience, speakers, goals, and topics to be covered, and must be received sufficiently in advance of the application receipt date to allow for staff review. Applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss their plans with the appropriate NCCAM Program Officer prior to sending the official request for permission to apply.
Receipt Dates/Deadlines: All applications must be submitted at least 6 months prior to the meeting. Applications will be received on the three Center for Scientific Review (CSR) receipt deadlines (April 15, August 15, and December 15) only.
All applicants must use the SF424 electronic grant application form.
Budget Guidelines
NCCAM's practice is to provide partial support for all conference grants depending on the degree of relevance to current program priorities at the following three levels:
- Applications directly relevant to the Center's mission, where the prominent focus is on CAM (as determined by the NIH multiple-step peer review process) and NCCAM is the primary awarding IC--a maximum level of support up to $30,000 per year
- Applications highly relevant to and emphasizing the Center's mission, where NCCAM's role is designated as secondary or other assignee--a maximum level of support up to $15,000 per year
- Applications deemed moderately relevant to the NCCAM mission--support up to $5,000 per year. Criterion 3 also applies to conference grants co-funded with another IC.
A special interest of the Center is to support financial hardship considerations for registrants, presenters, and experts who are financially disadvantaged. Typically, these costs will be used to pay registration fees, travel, and accommodation costs for CAM trainees and practitioners, as well as conventional medical trainees who have demonstrated a commitment to the CAM field, but are unable to afford the cost of attending the meeting or conference.
The Center enthusiastically endorses supporting the attendance of new investigators, women investigators, minority investigators, and investigators with disabilities.
Multiple-Year Applications
Applications for multiple-year awards may be submitted when a series of annual or biennial meetings is proposed by a sponsoring organization. The focus must be on presentations of original scientific findings. Support for meetings to be held on a less frequent schedule must be applied for individually. The application should demonstrate plans to secure commitments from additional non-Federal funding sources.
Although NIH guidelines state a scientific meeting may be funded for up to 5 years, because of NCCAM budget uncertainties, the evolving NCCAM research agenda, and emerging CAM areas, NCCAM will limit multiple-year awards to 3 years.
For applications requesting multiple years of support, the following additional information must be provided for each future year requested, in as much detail as possible:
- Meeting topic
- Tentative dates, locations, and participants
- Contingency plans for future meetings dependent on, for example, outcome of the first year's meeting or developments in the field
- A plan for attaining self-sufficiency
For awards covering multiple-year conferences, a shift in conference focus will preclude funding in subsequent years. This policy will be incorporated into the Terms and Conditions of all grant awards issued for multiple-year conferences.
Multiple-year awards require an annual progress report in the format of a Grant Progress Report (PHS 2590) submitted prior to the next scheduled meeting. The PHS 2590 Grant Progress Report instructions and forms are available online at grants.nih.gov/grants/forms.htm. The PHS 2590 should include a progress report on the previous meeting, as well as a full description of the specific plans for the next award period and all information requested in the competing Notice of Grant Award Terms and Conditions. NCCAM program staff will evaluate these reports and plans in approving annual non-competing continuation awards.
The following terms will be stated on the Notice of Grant Award as applicable.
NCCAM Conference Grant Terms of Award
Conference Grant Information (R13):
The organization receiving an award assumes legal and financial responsibility and accountability both for the awarded funds and also for the performance of the supported activity. NCCAM does not intend to restrict the grantee to any set plan in developing meetings.
Requirement:
NIH policy requires the submission of the following reports to the awarding component within 90 days after the completion or termination of this grant:
- Final Expenditure Report (SF-269) and Audit: An expenditure
report is required from the grantee (usually the treasurer or
other financial officer of the grantee organization). The grant
account must be maintained separately, either on different ledgers
or on different parts of ledgers, with substantiating invoices,
receipts, and payrolls readily available at all times for Government
audit. All records shall be retained for audit purposes for 3
years after audit is completed and all resulting questions are
resolved, whichever occurs first.
- Terminal Progress Report or copies of proceedings/publications: A report of the meeting must be prepared and three copies submitted to the awarding unit that supported the meeting within 90 days after the termination of the grant. The report should include (1) The grant number; (2) The title, date and place of the meeting; (3) the name of the person shown on the application as the conference director, principal investigator, or program director; (4) the name of the organization that conducted the meeting; and (5) a list of the individuals who participated as speakers or discussants in the formally planned sessions of the meeting and their institutional affiliations. Copies of proceedings or publications resulting from the meeting, including items (1) through (5) listed above, may be substituted for the final progress report, with approval of the NIH awarding unit.
Failure to submit these required reports, when due, may result in the imposition of special award provisions or the withholding of support for other eligible projects or activities involving the grantee organization or the individual responsible for the delinquency.
Conference Grant Information (R13): Multiple-Year Application
The organization receiving an award assumes legal and financial responsibility and accountability both for the awarded funds and also for the performance of the supported activity. NCCAM does not intend to restrict the grantee to any set plan in developing meetings.
This award includes a funding commitment for future years. A shift in the conference focus will preclude funding in subsequent years. Future year NCCAM support for this conference is contingent upon demonstration of successful performance.
Requirement: A non-competing application (PHS 2590) must be submitted no later than 6 months prior to the next scheduled meeting. The application should include a report on the previous meeting supported by the current grant award, as well as a full description of the next planned meeting including (1) meeting topic; (2) proposed dates, locations, and participants; (3) outcomes from the first year's meeting or development in the field; (4) demonstration of commitments from additional non-Federal funding sources.
Failure to submit these required reports, when due, may result in the withholding of support, imposition of special award provisions, or the withholding of support for other eligible projects or activities involving the grantee organization or the individualresponsible for the delinquency.
NCCAM Conference Grant Contacts
Discussions concerning potential NCCAM interest in sponsoring a conference, guidance regarding information required by NCCAM to approve an application, guidance regarding applications, and other inquiries should be addressed to:
The NCCAM Program Officers responsible for the scientific area of the conference,OR
Direct your questions about financial or grants management matters to:
-
George Tucker
Grants Management Officer
6707 Democracy Boulevard, Suite 401
Bethesda, MD 20892-5475
Phone: 301-594-8738
Fax: 301-480-1552
tuckerg@mail.nih.gov
