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Native American Research Centers for Health, 5^th Round (NARCH V)

On October 9th, 2007, a letter from the IHS Acting Director was sent to Tribal leaders and Tribal Health Directors. This letter announced the expected availability of funds starting in FY 2009 for the 5^th round of competitive grants to fund new or continuing Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH) and was also disseminated widely around the Native research community. Applications will be by hard copy (rather than electronic) and are due on May 16, 2008. A full announcement was published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2008.

• Word version of the Announcement [WORD - 273KB]
• An Acrobat (pdf) copy of the Federal Register Notice. [PDF - 113KB] The application and review process will be similar to that of the past several rounds of the NARCH program
• Supplementary Instructions for the NARCH V application, mentioned in the Federal Register [WORD - 75KB]
• A helpful Excel spreadsheet tool to assist with NARCH budget development [XLS - 2MB]

What is a NARCH?

Federally-recognized Tribes, Tribal Organizations (including Tribal Colleges) and Tribally authorized Indian Health Boards are eligible to form partnerships with research institutions and apply for funding to create a Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH). The NARCH initiative, now in its seventh year and fifth funding cycle, provides funding to AI/AN Tribes or Tribally based organizations to create partnerships with research institutions and conduct high quality biomedical, behavioral and health services research that will be relevant to the needs of the Tribes. In FY 2007, over $7million went to NARCH grantees in grants ranging from about $100,000 to over $1,000,000.

If you are a university-based (or other non-Tribal) researcher: You are not directly eligible to apply for a NARCH grant. To be eligible to participate in the NARCH program, you will have to become a subcontractor for an eligible Tribe or Tribal organization (or consortium of such eligible applicants). The Tribe(s) or Tribal organization(s) must determine the Tribal priorities for health research projects and research training. The university role is then to provide technical and educational expertise and assist in the development of the NARCH application to be submitted by the Tribe(s) or Tribal organization(s). At least 30% of the budget submitted with the application must remain within the Tribal organization(s) involved in the NARCH. No more than 70% of the application total can be budgeted for academic subcontractors ineligible to be direct grantees. Contact information for the federally recognized Tribes can be found at: http://www.ncai.org/Tribal_Directory. 3.0.html. Information for the Indian Health Boards can be found at: http://www.nihb.org/staticpages/index.php?page=200403301344375598. And information for the Tribal colleges can be found at: http://www.aihec.org/tribal_college_roster.cfml.

If you represent a Tribe or Tribal organization considering a NARCH application: Please send an email to narch@ihs.gov with a subject heading “Technical Assistance” and your full contact information, including your email address in the body of the email. You will be added to a listserve that receives all the information on additional technical assistance we will be offering, as it develops. Archives of that listserve (all previous email sendings about NARCH technical assistance) can be found at:

https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa?A0=TECHASSISTANCE-NARCH&X
=088D4F07CAEF1F7807&Y=alan.trachtenberg%40ihs.gov

You can also join the list directly from that page.

Technical Assistance for NARCH V

In addition to the technical assistance resources below, we will be offering several web-based (Webex) training sessions and teleconferences. Timing and specific content of those sessions will be based on responses sent to narch@ihs.gov and on availability of presenters. The IHS main Webex training page can be found at: http://ihs-hhs.webex.com. However, more specific instructions to access the NARCH technical assistance training sessions will be emailed to the TECHASSISTANCE-NARCH@LIST.NIH.GOV listserve as they become available.

Unlike most current federal grant applications, the NARCH-5 application will be paper-based and must be delivered by May 16, 2008 to both:

1. The NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) at Center for Scientific Review, National Institutes of Health, 6701 Rockledge Drive, Room 6160- -MSC 7892, Bethesda, MD 20892-7720, or Bethesda, MD 20817 (for express or courier service). Telephone: (301) 435-0715. Please note that the NIH Center for Scientific Review does not accept hand delivery. The CSR website can be found at: http://cms.csr.nih.gov/.
2. The IHS Division of Grants Operations (DGO) at Division of Grants Operations, Indian Health Service, Reyes Building, 801 Thompson Avenue, TMP 360, Rockville, MD 20852-1627 (zip code is unchanged for express/courier services), Telephone: (301) 443-5204. The DGO website can be found at: http://www.ihs.gov/NonMedicalPrograms/gogp/.

Applications will be submitted using the PHS 398 Fillable Forms - 4/2006 or 11/07 Revision ( http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/phs398.html), following the standard instructions (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/instructions2/phs398instructions.htm), except where those may conflict with the NARCH V Funding Announcement in the Federal Register (pdf or Word) or the NARCH V Supplementary Instructions.

If you are new to the research process, there is a nice overview of it at: http://www.statpac.com/research-papers/research-process.htm. It will be especially important for you to select and engage with university/researcher partners as early as possible.

Before you begin to plan your grant application, you will find it very useful to review the NIAID grants tutorials at: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/default.htm.

There is a more interactive grant writing tutorial from NIDA at: http://www.theresearchassistant.com/tutorial/index.asp, which includes an outlining assistant and other useful tools for grant writing. A review of “fatal flaws” to avoid in grant applications can be found at: http://www.bielawski.com/spirit/phs398air.htm.

There are very helpful, annotated sections from a successful grant application at: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/grants/app/default.htm, for you to consider as a model for research projects. However, in any specifics on which that advice may conflict with the Supplementary Instructions for Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH V) Applications in 2008 or the NARCH V Announcement in the Federal Register, these specific NARCH instructions take precedence and should be followed.

There is also helpful guidance on grant writing from the NIH Office of Extramural Research at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/writing_application.htm and a list of grant writing tip sheets at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/grant_tips.htm.

Glossaries and lists of Acronyms at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/glossary.htm or at: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/glossary/default.htm will help you understand terminology that may be unfamiliar to you. An excellent and comprehensive presentation on “Grant Writing for Success” by Sesma & Sorensen can be found at:

http://www.ncbiotech.org/services_and_programs/intellectual_exchange/documents/nih_writing_three.pdf.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has a new “NIH RO1 toolkit” at: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2007_07_27/caredit_a0700106. This is particularly relevant to the research project proposals that are an important part of the NARCH application.

One important objective of the NARCH program is to build research infrastructure in Indian Country, including the development of researcher careers for American Indians and Alaska natives. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has a booklet on developing a research career. This may be helpful to applicants in developing NARCH student and/or faculty development projects.

If you are considering a clinical research project, a very helpful article can be found at: http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/142/4/274.pdf. (Inouye SK, Fiellin DA: An Evidence-Based Guide to Writing Grant Proposals for Clinical Research. Ann Intern Med. 2005;142:274-282.)

Judgement and Scoring of Applications

Research Project Proposal Content Review (courtesy of UW)

Does the abstract:

• State the overall objective of the research?
• Succinctly state the specific aims?
• Briefly describe the methods?
• Indicate the long-term goal of the research?
• Give a snapshot of the whole proposal?

Do the specific aims:

• Address your research goals in specific terms (defined objectives that can be reached) rather than generalizations?
• Avoid vague terms such as "describe the process of . ." , "characterize the phenomenon of . . ." , or "elucidate mechanisms for . . ."?
• State hypotheses where appropriate?
• Begin with an introductory statement that provides a mini-background?
• Seem clearly related to each other?
• Avoid being a fishing expedition (collecting data with no clear indication of how it will be used)?
• Present a doable body of work, rather than being too broad or ambitious?

Does the background:

• Begin with a clear statement of the general problem you will address?
• Compare, contrast and critique what others have done (not just catalog it)?
• Show how existing work (literature and/or preliminary data) lays the groundwork for your proposal?
• Cite original literature rather than reviews whenever possible?
• Avoid citing so many papers that you come across as unselective?
• Explain how your studies will fill a gap or solve a problem?
• Raise questions the reviewers might pose, then answer them immediately?
• End with a summary of your main points?

Does the preliminary data section:

• Include only data pertinent to your proposal?
• Demonstrate expertise with the techniques and methods you are going to use?
• Use clear, readable graphs or charts instead of tables or text whenever feasible?
• Avoid putting too many curves on one graph?
• Assure that curves on graphs are distinguishable from each other after photocopying?
• Provide graphs with legends and labels that make understandable separate from adjacent text?
• Use appropriate statistics?
• Summarize your findings at the end of each section and state their importance?
• End with an overall summary?

Does the experimental design/methods section:

• First give an overview of the experimental design , then give the details of the methods?
• Relate the design and methods back to each specific aim?
• Use diagrams or flow charts to explain complex protocols?
• Give enough detail to demonstrate that you know what you are talking about, without crowding page limits? (This is an art form; get help if needed.)
• Make good use of space by referring to standard methods papers or protocol books where appropriate ?
• Make good use of space by referring to the preliminary data section when methods were described there?
• Give examples of the results you expect and how you will interpret them?
• Anticipate pitfalls you might face and explain how to deal with them?
• Provide a time line that shows you have not designed an overly ambitious project?

Inouye SK, Fiellin DA: An Evidence-Based Guide to Writing Grant Proposals for

Clinical Research. Ann Intern Med. 2005;142:274-282.

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This file last modified: Monday March 24, 2008  2:20 PM