NIAID Glossary of Funding and Policy Terms and Acronyms: N-Q

Three subcommittees of the NAAIDC that conduct second-level review and advise the NIAID extramural program divisions -- Division of AIDS, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation -- to which they correspond.

Go to advisory Council.

NIH institute that conducts and supports research to understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. Go to NIAID.

Body that advises federal agencies on ways to minimize the possibility that biological research knowledge and technologies will be used to threaten public health or national security. Go to National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.

Application by a drug sponsor to FDA to approve a new pharmaceutical for sale and marketing in the U.S. under regulations 21 CFR 314, based on data from animal studies and clinical trials. See investigational new drug application.

Scientist who has never been a PI on many types of NIH grants, including an R01. See the list of grant types along with exceptions at Are You "New"? Also see early-stage investigator.

Go to NIAID's New Investigator Guide to NIH Funding and NIH's New Investigators Program.

SBIR award NIAID uses to fund projects that have progressed significantly along the pathway to FDA approval (or foreign equivalent). Go to NIAID's Small Business Awards and NIH's Small Business Funding Opportunities.

STTR award NIAID uses to fund projects that have progressed significantly along the pathway to FDA approval (or foreign equivalent). Go to NIAID's Small Business Awards and NIH's Small Business Funding Opportunities.

Sets general policies for NIH that lay out the parameters of the NIAID financial management plan. Go to Financial Management Plan SOP.

Movement of budget authority from one NIH account to another in a way that does not involve an outlay of government funds. 

Judgment by a scientific review group that a grant application lacks significant and substantial scientific merit or involves serious hazards or unethical procedures. Such applications do not warrant a review and are not eligible for funding. See also unscored and recommended.

Go to the following NIAID pages:

• What Happens If Reviewers Have Concerns?
• If Your Application Is Unscored and Part 11b. Not Funded, Reapply in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.
• NIAID Funding Decisions questions and answers.

Legally binding document that notifies a grantee and others that a grant has been funded. It contains or references all terms and conditions of award and documents the obligation of federal funds.

Go to NIAID's Read Your Notice of Award, Know Your Terms in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal and NIH Grants Policy Statement.

See Notice of Award.

NIAID organization in the Division of Extramural Activities that oversees contracts. Go to NIAID's R&D Contracts.

Executive Branch office that assists the U.S. president in preparing the federal budget, evaluating agency programs and policies, and setting funding priorities. In setting policy, OMB issues government-wide policy directives, called circulars, that apply to grants.

Go to OMB's Grants Management Circulars.

HHS office that promotes integrity in biomedical and behavioral research supported by the Public Health Service by monitoring institutional investigations of research misconduct and facilitating the responsible conduct of research. Go to ORI and NIAID's Research Misconduct Cases SOP.

NIAID office that manages NIAID's portfolio of patents and inventions and facilitates collaborations between NIAID intramural researchers and external organizations through CRADAs and other agreements.

See technology transfer, and go to NIAID's OTD.

NIH office that manages the NIH invention portfolio and oversees NIH technology transfer. See technology transfer, and go to OTT.

Use of the unspent portion of a current year's budget to fund a future budget period.

Requirement that agencies conduct peer review of certain publications before publishing influential scientific information that may affect important public policies or private sector decisions.

Go to the OMB Bulletin and Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review in the Federal Register.

Earliest date an application may be submitted to Grants.gov. This is different from the posted date and release date. Even though a funding opportunity announcement is posted, it may not be open for applications.

Budget category that includes K series career awards, R13 conference grants, R18 research demonstration and dissemination projects, R24 resource-related research projects, and U24 cooperative agreement awards. For descriptions of these activity codes, go to NIAID's Grants portals.

All financial resources -- federal, non-federal, commercial, or institutional -- that support a principal investigator's research, including research grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts, but not including training awards, prizes, and gifts.

Applicants must submit other support information for all key personnel to NIH just-in-time following the sample in the Grant Application Guide.

Applicants should not submit current and pending support with the application using the attachment on the Research and Related Senior/Key Person Profile form.

Go to NIAID's Prepare Your Other Support Submission in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal, Just-in-Time SOP, and Just-in-Time questions and answers.

Human subjects term indicating efforts to recruit and retain populations of interest (racial and ethnic categories and subpopulations, and women) into research studies. Go to NIAID's Human Subjects, Clinical Research.

Other support that duplicates research or budgetary items already funded by an NIH grant. Overlap also occurs when any project-supported personnel has time commitments exceeding 12 person months.

Also see scientific overlap, budgetary overlap, and commitment overlap. Go to Prepare Your Other Support Submission in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

Biological agents and toxins listed in 42 CFR 73 section 73.4, which have the potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety, to animal health, or to animal products.

Overlap select agent and toxins are subject to regulation by both CDC and USDA. Investigators who possess or use select agents must register with and get approval from either the CDC Select Agent Program or USDA APHIS Agricultural Select Agent Program, depending on the agent.

Go to Select Agent and Toxin List and NIAID Category A, B & C Priority Pathogens. Go to NIAID's Biodefense Research and Development page and Select Agent Awards SOP.

PAR

See program announcement identifying location of peer review.

See parent program announcement.

NIH-wide funding opportunity announcement that enables applicants to submit an electronic investigator-initiated grant application for a single grant mechanism, e.g., Research Project Grant (Parent R01).

For any parent PA, some institutes may not participate or may not accept applications in all topics. Institutes may also issue institute-specific initiatives to solicit applications for scientific or administrative purposes.

Get a list at Parent Announcements for Unsolicited or Investigator-Initiated Applications. Also go to NIAID's How Funding Opportunities Work tutorial page and Funding Opportunity Announcements questions and answers.

Document issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office containing a description, specification, and claims that describe the subject matter in detail and giving its owner a right to exclude others from making, using, or selling it.

Only the inventor can obtain a patent; however, employers often require employees to hand over patent rights.

Conservative funding cutoff point for grant applications set at the beginning of a fiscal year. Institutes determine paylines by balancing projected grant numbers, grant budgets, and monies in the budget.

NIAID funds most applications in percentile (for R01s only) or priority score order (for other grants) and funds additional applications at the end of a fiscal year. See also selective pay.

Go to NIAID's Budget and Funding and How NIAID Determines Which Applications to Fund and Paylines Are a Conservative Funding Cut Point tutorial pages.

System for evaluating research grant applications and contract proposals using non-NIH reviewers who are professional peers of an investigator or offeror. NIH's peer review system comprises both initial peer review and second-level review.

See also dual peer review, scientific review group, study section, integrated review group, special emphasis panel, scientific review officer, human subjects codes, and animals in research codes. Go to Initial Peer Review Assesses Scientific Merit, Peer Review SOPs, and Peer Review of Applications questions and answers.

Scientist who reviews grant applications or contract proposals for NIH. This includes the scientific review group chair, who leads the discussions.

See also primary peer reviewer, secondary peer reviewer, initial peer review, and scientific review officer. Go to Who Peer Reviews Your Application? and Peer Review Meetings -- CSR questions and answers.

Ranking used by NIH institutes to set R01 paylines and make funding decisions. A percentile shows the relative position of each application's priority score among all scores assigned by a scientific review group at its last three meetings. The range is .1 to 100.0; lower numbers represent better scores.

Go to Percentiles Indicate Relative Rank, How Percentiles Are Determined, and Score Clustering Distorts Percentiles tutorial pages.

Sensitive information that could distinguish a person's identity. Examples include names, social security numbers, medical information, pictures, and financial records.

Different from individually identifiable information in human subjects research. See NIAID's Data Security SOP.

NIAID plan outlining major milestones for developing and publishing initiatives and reviewing the resulting grant applications and contract proposals.

See NIAID's Phasing of Initiatives SOP.

PHS noncompeting grant progress report. A grantee submits a PHS 2590 annually to NIH to report progress and continue funding. NIH has a streamlined noncompeting award process (SNAP); Notices of Award state whether a grant is SNAP. See also eSNAP.

Go to PHS 2590 Non-Competing Grant Progress Report and eSNAP (Electronic Streamlined Noncompeting Award Process) SOP.

PHS grant application forms and instructions for submitting a paper competing research grant or cooperative agreement. Go to PHS 398 and NIAID's Grant Application, Paper SOP.

For electronic applications, name used for some agency-specific forms in the SF 424 Grant Application Package.

PHS grant application forms and instructions for submitting a competing training grant or fellowship, also known as National Research Service Awards.

Go to PHS 416-1 for the form. For more information, go to NIAID's Training and Career Awards, Tutorial for Training and Career Awards, Fellowships, and Supplements and NIH's NRSA.

Form in the electronic SF 424 Grant Application Package used for modular budgets. Also see Research and Related Budget. Go to NIAID's Create Your Budget and Modular Grants SOP.

Form in the electronic SF 424 Grant Application Package used to create the research plan. Go to Part 5. Research Plan in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

PI applicant

See applicant.

Implanted embryo in early stages of development before formation of identifiable tissues and organs.

Costs (e.g., salaries, animal purchases, other start-up costs) that investigators incur when they anticipate receiving a Notice of Award. Prior approval is required in some cases. Go to Prior Approvals for Post-Award Grant Actions SOP and Terms and Conditions of NIH Grant Awards in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

Incurring preaward costs does not obligate NIAID to issue an award notice or increase the amount of the approved or committed budget.

Section of an NIH grant application's Research Plan.

• Preliminary Studies -- for a new NIH grant application, section describing the principal investigator’s relevant preliminary studies to establish the competence of the investigator to accomplish goals of the project.
• Progress Report -- for a renewal NIH grant application, section summarizing the previous application’s specific aims, any changes to the specific aims as a result of budget reductions, and importance of results.

Read Preliminary Studies/Progress Report in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

Routing of an NIH grant application by CSR to an IC, which decides whether to fund it. An IC may request to change this assignment if the application is more suited to another IC. Also see secondary assignment and receipt, referral, and assignment of applications.

Go to NIAID's Requesting an Institute, Applications Are Assigned to an Institute and Integrated Review Group, and Call If You Are Not Satisfied With a CSR Assignment in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

Peer reviewer who reads a grant application thoroughly, writes a critique of it before an initial peer review meeting, and then presents it to the scientific review group for discussion. Also see secondary peer reviewer.

Go to NIAID's Part 4. Target Your Audience, Who Peer Reviews Your Application?, and Peer Review Meetings -- CSR questions and answers.

Qualified person or persons designated by an applicant institution to direct a research project or program supported by NIH and who usually writes the grant application.

PIs oversee scientific and technical aspects of a grant and the day-to-day management of the research. They do not have to be employees of a grantee organization, but these parties must have a written agreement specifying their relationship. Grants.gov term is project director/principal investigator. Also see multiple PI. Go to NIAID's Part 1. Qualifying for a Grant tutorial page.

Document that replaces a PI's signature on NIH's electronic documents. PIs file the assurance with a grantee institution for each grant application, progress report, or prior approval request.

Go to NIAID's Noncompeting Progress Reports and Program Officer Approval SOP. Also see SF 424 (Cover Page)and You Will Send Some Materials Just-in-Time in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

See new investigator.

Average of individual ratings of scientific merit given by reviewers of an initial peer review scientific review group. Ratings range from 1.0 (outstanding) to 5.0 (acceptable).

Though scientific review groups use numbers 1.0 to 5.0, scores are listed on a summary statement as 100 to 500. See percentile, and go to Initial Peer Review Assesses Scientific Merit and subsequent tutorial pages.

Information for which a person can expect that observations or recording are not taking place, and the information will not be made public. Information must be individually identifiable to constitute human subjects research.

Go to definition 45 CFR 46.102(f) and full 45 CFR 46. Also see coded private information. Go to NIAID's Human Subjects, Clinical Research and Private Information or Biological Specimens in Human Subjects Research questions and answers.

NIH announcement requesting grant applications in stated scientific areas, unless a Parent PA.

Generally institutes do not set aside money to pay for the grants (unless a PAS), and applications are considered to be investigator-initiated. For some PAs, NIAID may fund applications with scores beyond the payline.

Institutes publish PAs in the NIH Guide and in Grants.gov as funding opportunity announcements. Also see PAR and PAS.

Go to NIAID's Program Announcements SOP and Funding Opportunities and Announcements, NIAID Funding Opportunity Planning and the Budget Cycle, and How Funding Opportunities Work, and subsequent tutorial pages.

Program announcement identifying location of peer review

Program announcement that identifies the location of initial peer review, either in the Center for Scientific Review or an institute, and may include other information on receipt, referral, or review. Abbreviation is PAR.

See Scientific Review Program. Also go to NIAID's Funding Opportunities and Announcements, NIAID Funding Opportunity Planning and the Budget Cycle and How Funding Opportunities Work tutorial pages, and RFAs and NIAID's Peer Review Process questions and answers.

IMPAC II designator signifying a scientific program, category of research, and program officer. NIAID uses four bytes.

The first denotes division: Division of AIDS -- A, Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation -- I, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases -- M, or Division of Extramural Activities -- X.

The next two characters denote a scientific program, and the fourth character denotes programs with more than one program officer.

Program class codes allow staff and NIAID's main advisory Council members to see where grant applications and awards reside administratively. Go to Program Officers Listed by Program Class Code spreadsheet and Program Assignment in NIAID SOP.

Formerly used term. See Program Officer Checklist.

Grant in the P series that supports a multidisciplinary, long-term research program with an objective or theme involving groups of investigators. Awarded on behalf of a principal investigator, the grant can support projects and shared resources.

Go to NIAID's Other Grant Types, Instructions for Preparing a Multiproject Grant Application tutorial, and NIAID Program Project (P01) Applications questions and answers.

Total allowable costs, both direct costs and facilities and administrative costs, incurred by a grantee to carry out a project. Costs can be charged to a grant and paid by a grantee to satisfy a matching or cost-sharing requirement.

See the Research and Related Budget components of the SF 424. Go to NIAID's Strategy for Planning a Budget in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

For an electronic application, field and attachment to the Research and Related Budget Other Project Information form of an electronic grant application that provides a complete description of what the proposed research intends to accomplish in 30 lines or less.

Abstracts are public and should not include confidential information. Go to Project Summary/Abstract and Project Narrative in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

See acceptable proposal.

Formal design for research involving human subjects or research animals an investigator submits to an IRB or IACUC for review. For human subjects research, NIAID staff also review protocols.

A protocol generally has an objective, rationale, design, eligibility requirements, treatment regimen, and a description of research and data analysis methods. Go to NIAID's Human Subjects, Clinical Research and Research Animals.

Public sources of data, such as census data. The meaning with respect to human tissue specimens is widely debated. Generally, specimens made broadly available to the research community but not to the public are not considered to be publicly available.

Go to OER Human Subjects Web Site: FAQs about Research Using Human Specimens, Cell Lines or Data and NIAID's Public Access of Publications SOP.

Service of the NIH National Library of Medicine providing access to 12 million MEDLINE citations and journals as well as links to full text articles. Go to PubMed.

Free database of the NIH National Library of Medicine housing biomedical and life sciences journal articles. NIH is asking investigators to post their manuscripts to PubMed Central.

Go to NIAID's Public Access of Publications SOP and Copyright and Publication for Grantees questions and answers.

Look It Up

See the Glossary for terms.