November 5, 2008
News Articles
Opportunities and Resources
Advice Corner
New Funding Opportunities
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News Articles |
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Just One Resubmission, Please
Starting with applications submitted for the first time for the January 25 receipt date, NIH will allow you to revise and resubmit your application just once if it did not get a fundable score. Until then, you can resubmit twice. The change applies to both new and renewal applications.
Not affected are applications already in the system slated for the January and May 2009 advisory Councils. NIH announced the policy change in an October 8, 2008, Guide notice.
While NIH’s goal is to fund applications earlier, we do not yet know the effect of this change on reviewer behavior.
As always, people who do not succeed after resubmitting will have to significantly revise their applications, as we describe in Option 3: Create a New Application in the NIH Grant Cycle.
NIH’s move to trim resubmissions stems from its revamp of initial peer review – see NIH Recasts Peer Review in the October 1, 2008, NIAID Funding News.
Stopgap Funding Starts the Fiscal Year
As usual, we begin FY 2009 operating under a continuing resolution, which locks NIH’s expenditures at the previous fiscal year’s levels.
The CR keeps us running through March 6, 2009, while Congress hashes out the federal government’s 12 annual appropriations bills.
As the first decision for its financial management plan, NIH directed institutes to reduce noncompeting research grants, typically paying up to 90 percent of the level indicated on the most recent Notice of Award. If after we receive a final budget we have the funds, we will issue revised awards that restore these monies.
While under the CR, we are funding a limited number of applications, including R01s to the 10.0 percentile.
Please note that this is a provisional payline. It's not a true payline but an administrative measure that allows us to fund applications with the best scores during this interim period.
For that reason, we do not send Email Alerts for provisional paylines. As soon as we receive our true paylines and financial management plan, we will send you alerts as the information comes in. To sign up, Subscribe to Email Alerts.
Our budget office will be setting other interim paylines, but we do not expect to have final paylines until spring.
Check the Budget and Funding portal for new information on the payline, financial management plan, and other budget-related pages.
Ventured Onto Our New Portal-Like Pages?
As part of our site reorganization, key parts of Research Funding are now designed as portals for different audiences, award stages, and science areas. They are like portals since these pages aggregate information from our main content pages, including our tutorials and SOPs.
Our portal-like pages are:
Stages
Audiences
Science Areas
This design puts content in context, making it easier for you to find and use information. For example, the application portal walks you through the application process, linking to other pages for more detailed information. The R01 portal is different: it links directly to resources R01 investigators need.
We’ve kept our link lists including SOP, question and answer, and Find It, while also integrating them into the portal approach.
You can access the portals from the Research Funding front page or the main Grants page.
We've followed through with this approach also on NIAID Funding News, Budget and Funding, and Opportunities and Announcements.
Here's another handy innovation. On the new pages, the right-hand column houses direct links to our most popular pages -- hopefully your favorites too -- as well as Glossary links related to the page.
This feature is made possible by a new wider page that will eventually appear site-wide. We have many pages to put into this new template, so it will take a while before you will see the right-hand column on each page.
Please write us at deaweb@niaid.nih.gov with your suggestions or just to let us know what you think about the new site design.
Reimbursement Process for Reviewers
Peer reviewers, take note: a new reimbursement system is in the works. NIH is phasing out the U.S. Treasury Central Contractor Registration for electronic reimbursement of peer reviewers' honoraria and expenses from participating in review meetings.
Through December 31, 2008, follow the procedures in the October 10, 2008, Guide notice. We wrote about this previously in "Peer Reviewers Can Wave Goodbye to CCR" in the July 2, 2008, NIAID Funding News.
NIH's Dr. Zerhouni Moves On
At the end of October, Dr. Elias Zerhouni stepped down as NIH director. Dr. Raynard S. Kington, formerly NIH's principal deputy director, is now acting director, providing continuity to NIH's day-to-day operations.
Dr. Zerhouni is widely recognized for his many achievements -- see the September 2008 Extramural Nexus article. Next, he plans to pursue writing projects and explore other professional opportunities.
We don't expect to get a new NIH director any time soon. The new HHS secretary will take office well after the inauguration on January 20, 2009. This person will likely take stock of the agency and select a new NIH director after setting departmental priorities.
And another NIH leadership change is in the works for November: Dr. Norka Ruiz Bravo will step down as NIH deputy director for extramural research and director of the Office of Extramural Research. She will fill a new role as special advisor to the NIH director, while Dr. Sally J. Rockey fills the post of acting deputy director.
RCDC Open House Meetings
Learn about the new Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC) public reporting Web site at an open house demonstration on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.
Through RCDC, the public will be able to find a complete list of all NIH-funded projects by category for each fiscal year.
See the schedule and reserve a seat at Open House Meetings.
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Opportunities and Resources |
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Get Ahead of Priorities -- Check Out September Council Concepts
Join your savvy colleagues who mine Council-approved concepts with two goals in mind: find clues to future research directions and get ideas for an investigator-initiated application. Go to Concepts: Potential Opportunities for the latest concepts from the September Council meeting.
Concepts are initiatives -- program announcements, requests for applications, or requests for proposals still in the planning stage.
Why would you want to know what initiatives NIAID may possibly publish during the next year or so?
First, you get an early peek at areas where the Institute may be putting some of its money.
Second, concepts give you a glimpse into topics that may give you a better chance of getting an investigator-initiated award.
Why? We and our advisory Council agree that concept topics are high priority. Even in an era of tight budgets, NIAID funds some high-priority applications with scores beyond the payline through programs such as R56-Bridge and selective pay.
After each Council meeting, we post our new Council-approved concepts, so you can check whether your expertise lends itself to any of these high-priority topics.
Read more in our September 3, 2008, article, "Concepts for New Initiatives -- Should You Tune In?"
New Fellowship Forms and Signature Policy
Starting on November 30, 2008, fellowship applicants, grantees, and institutions must use NIH's recently revised forms for activation, termination, and payback activities. Find them in the Training Forms section of NIH Forms and Applications.
Fellows and sponsors no longer sign fellowship applications, progress reports, and prior approval requests. Instead, institutions have to keep their signature assurances on file.
See the following October 14, 2008, Guide notices for details on these changes:
Pilot: Reporting FCOI Through the Commons
In the September 17, 2008 article, "We're Staying on Top of Financial Conflicts of Interest -- Are You?," we told you what we're doing to make it easier to report financial conflicts of interest (FCOI).
Add one more thing to the list: a pilot module in the eRA Commons that allows signing officials to prepare, submit, search, and edit conflict of interest reports and supporting documents.
If your institution delegates report preparation to you, your signing official needs to add that role to your Commons account. Only the signing official can submit the report.
Members of the Federal Demonstration Partnership can participate in the pilot along with a few other institutions by invitation only. If it's successful, NIH will offer the tool to every institution.
For more information, read the October 1, 2008, Guide notice and go to eRA's Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI).
SPAR Announces 2009 Research Award
A message for original thinkers who want to study asthma pathogenesis: the non-profit Strategic Program for Asthma Research offers three-year awards for high-risk, investigator-initiated research by scientists in any field.
If you're a senior investigator with a well-established research program, you can apply for $250,000 a year. Less-established researchers who have an independent research program and a faculty position or equivalent can get $150,000 a year.
To qualify, you have to work for a nonprofit institution in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Sweden, Ireland, or the U.K.
The deadline is February 11, 2009. Read Award Policies to see if you're a good fit, and go to Application to learn how to apply.
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Advice Corner |
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Applicants and Grantees Can Now Request Foreign A&R Costs
Revising its policy on alterations and renovations (A&R) costs, NIH will now pay for physical upgrades to the infrastructure of foreign buildings.
Foreign institutions or domestic institutions with foreign components may now factor in A&R costs of $500,000 or less, as follows:
- Applicants. When submitting your competing application, you may include A&R costs of $500,000 or less in any detailed budget. Be sure to justify your request.
- Grantees. You may rebudget for A&R costs, but you must have prior approval from your NIAID grants management officer.
If your A&R request is over $300,000, you must submit additional information, including line drawings, and you will need additional approvals. Also, keep in mind that A&R does not cover completing construction in a new building; it's only for changes to existing space. For example, it does not pay to configure shell space for initial use.
Examples of infrastructure changes include modifying an existing laboratory to include new countertops, adding doors to prevent unauthorized access, or getting more laboratory space ready to accommodate freezers.
Read more in the October 8, 2008, Guide notice.
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New Funding Opportunities |
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- PA-09-019, Medical Management of Older Patients with HIV/AIDS (R21)
- PA-09-018, Medical Management of Older Patients with HIV/AIDS (R03)
- PA-09-017, Medical Management of Older Patients with HIV/AIDS (R01)
- RFA-DK-08-010, Intestinal Stem Cell Consortium
- RFP-NIAID-DMID-NIHAI2008041, Animal Models of Infectious Diseases
- RFP-NIAID-DAIDS-NIHAI2008036, Comprehensive Resources for HIV Microbicides and Biomedical Prevention
- RFP-NIAID-NIHAI2008044, Inner City Asthma Consortium
- RFP-NIAID-DAIT-NIHAI2008034, Non-Human Primate Reagent Resource
- PA-09-007, Innovative Toxicity Assays of Pollutants, Therapeutics, and Drugs
- PA-09-006, Innovative Toxicity Assays of Pollutants, Therapeutics, and Drugs
See these and older announcements at NIH Funding Opportunities Relevant to NIAID. |
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