December 17, 2008
The December 2008 Issue of the NIH Extramural Nexus, with the latest news, tips and important information for our research community, is now available. In addition, all issues may be viewed from the NIH Extramural Nexus web page.

December 2, 2008
NIH is in the process of reposting approximately 100 opportunities in Grants.gov that require paper application submission. This action may result in receipt of automated e-mail notification of a change from Grants.gov. Please note that there are no changes to the content of these funding opportunities. The FOAs are still active. See NOT-OD-09-022.

November 26, 2008
The November 2008 Issue of the NIH Extramural Nexus, with the latest news, tips and important information for our research community, is now available. In addition, all issues may be viewed from the NIH Extramural Nexus web page.

November 3, 2008
New Investigator policies, stemming from the NIH Enhancing Peer Review Initiative (see http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/index.html), can be found in this Revised New and Early Stage Investigator Policy Announcement.   Under this new policy, the NIH intends to support New Investigators at success rates comparable to those for established investigators submitting new applications.  Early Stage Investigators (ESIs), as previously described on September 26, 2008 at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-121.html should comprise a majority of the New Investigators supported.   In addition, New Investigator applications will be clustered during review whenever possible.  This notice also advises New Investigators and ESIs that these NIH New Investigator Policies are limited to applications for traditional research project grant (R01) support.  For more information, such as the following definitions, see this Guide Notice and the related links: 

New Investigator: In general, a Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) is considered a New Investigator if he/she has not previously competed successfully as PD/PI for a significant NIH independent research award.  For example, a PD/PI who has previously received a competing NIH R01 research grant is no longer considered a New Investigator.  A complete definition of a New Investigator along with a list of NIH grants that do not disqualify a PD/PI from being considered a New Investigator can be found at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/new_investigators/resources.htm. 

Early Stage Investigator (ESI): An individual who is classified as a New or First-Time Investigator and is within 10 years of completing his/her terminal research degree or is within 10 years of completing medical residency (or the equivalent) is considered an Early Stage Investigator (ESI).  More information on ESIs is available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-121.html.

October 31, 2008
The October 2008 Issue of the NIH Extramural Nexus, with the latest news, tips and important information for our research community, is now available. In addition, all issues may be viewed from the NIH Extramural Nexus web page.

October 3, 2008
NIH Announces a New Business Process for Reporting an Identified Financial Conflict of Interest for Grants and/or Cooperative Agreements beginning October 10, 2008.  The NIH invites all Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP ) members to participate in a pilot of a Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) Module, a new feature of the NIH electronic Research Administration (eRA) Commons.  The FCOI Module provides institutional users the ability to electronically prepare and submit FCOI reports and other required documents through the Commons.  Further information can be found is available in the NIH Guide Notice, dated October 1, 2008. A link to this notice and associated resources are available on the Conflict of Interest Web page.

September 30, 2008
The September 2008 Issue of the NIH Extramural Nexus, with the latest news, tips and important information for our research community, is now available. In addition, all issues may be viewed from the NIH Extramural Nexus web page.

September 10, 2008
The NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) has posted a new Web site (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/natural_disasters.htm) detailing its responses to natural disasters and other emergencies impacting the biomedical community.  Look here for NIH Guide Notices and other information of particular relevance to investigators and their institutions, links to web pages listing NIH’s response to certain major events (past and present); and look here also for related information, such as links to other Federal sites and links to professional societies that are facilitating interactions between affected investigators.