August 23, 2006
News Articles
Opportunities and Resources
Advice Corner
New Initiatives
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News Articles |
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Send NIH Your Feedback on Appendix Changes
NIH is seeking your input about proposed changes to appendix materials for electronic applications.
Under the new scenario, most funding opportunity announcements would not allow an appendix. Instead, you would put the information in other sections of the application. Also all peer reviewers would receive copies of the full application.
Here are some proposed changes:
- Color and high resolution photos would be in the body of the Research Plan.
- Any materials essential to review would be part of the application. For example, documents such as clinical protocols, informed consent forms, questionnaires, surveys, and similar items would be in the Protection of Human Subjects section.
- Reprints or preprints of a publication would be replaced with links to PubMed or a journal in the relevant part of the application. Applicants would place critical details in the Research Plan and cite them in the Bibliography and References Cited attachment, indicating publication status.
Send your feedback by September 14 using the Request for Information response form. For details, read the August 2, 2006, NIH Guide notice.
Welcome F. Gray Handley, New Executive for International Research
As our new associate director for international research affairs, F. Gray Handley will coordinate and facilitate the Institute's international research activities.
Mr. Handley is also acting director of the Office of Global Research, a role that supports our research divisions, particularly by facilitating international research in resource-poor countries.
Since 2002, Mr. Handley served as health attaché and HHS southern Africa regional representative in Pretoria, South Africa. From 1992 to 1998 he served in a similar post as science attaché and HHS regional representative in south Asia in New Delhi, India.
Mr. Handley has vast experience in the international arena including high-level posts at the NICHD, the NIH Fogarty International Center, and the Department of State. He holds an M.S. degree in public health from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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Opportunities and Resources |
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Calculating NRSA Tuition, Fees, and Health Insurance
Starting fiscal year 2007,
NIH will tweak the way it calculates costs
on NRSA institutional
research training
grants and individual fellowships.
Along with a revised tuition formula, NIH is moving health insurance to training-related expenses from the tuition, fees, and health insurance category. For details,
read the August
18, 2006, Guide notice.
Get Paid for Your Education
Doctoral-level professionals working in certain research fields can get help repaying educational loans through the NIH Loan Repayment Programs.
You can receive as much as $35,000 a year plus taxes in reimbursement for your expenses. To participate, you must spend at least two years and 50 percent of your time performing clinical or pediatric research.
For more about the qualifications and application process, see the August 8 program announcements for Extramural Pediatric Researchers and Extramural Clinical Researchers.
Apply September 1 through December 1, 2006. Go to Apply Here at NIH Loan Repayment.
Foundation Funding Followup
We've gotten quite a response to the question we posed in our last issue: whether you wanted us to develop a list of foundations that support research in NIAID's research areas.
Please help us get started by sending the name of relevant foundations you are aware of to deaweb@niaid.nih.gov. We'll post the results of our collective findings online and let you know as soon as the list is ready.
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Advice Corner |
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Is a Late Application OK?
That depends. Practice differs depending whether NIH or NIAID is reviewing your application. In either case, you must have a valid excuse.
If your application is to be reviewed in the Center for Scientific Review -- most investigator-initiated applications are -- NIH follows the guidance in its August 11, 2006, Guide notice.
Contrary to the Guide notice, NIAID may accept a late application responding to an initiative reviewed here, e.g., for applications responding to an RFA or PAR.
So for NIAID review, disregard the Guide's statement, "NIH will not consider accepting late applications for the special receipt dates for RFAs and PARs." The Institute got approval for its policy from the director of CSR's Division of Receipt and Referral.
We spell this out in How to Submit Electronically on Time and Rules for Late Applications in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.
Reader Questions
Future Year Costs for Subcontractors
Helen Drake-Perrow, administrative manager at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University, asks:
"One of our subcontractors wants to use a 5 percent inflation factor, is that OK? I looked in the PHS 398 but couldn't find the answer."
You will not find this information in the grant application instructions because it changes annually. Each year NIH creates funding policies in what is called the financial management plan.
NIAID publishes its Financial Management Plan, which includes the NIH plan and other elements, on our Paylines and Budget page.
While some PAs may include language that limits escalation in future years to 3 percent, many do not. NIH's FY 2006 policy includes a 3 percent escalation factor for competing nonmodular applications. Though your organization may ask for any escalation factor it wishes, we may award up to a 3 percent increase only.
Due to the current flat budgets, NIH institutes are decreasing noncompeting annual grants awards (e.g., years two, three, and four) in FY 2006 to 97.65 percent of the amount indicated in the Notice of Grant Award for the previous budget year. Read the January 9, 2006, Guide notice for more information.
Minimal Level of Effort for PIs
"What is the minimal level of effort for a PI on a grant?"
NIH does not set a minimum effort requirement for research project grants, such as the R01. Only a few grant types have this requirement, including career development awards and small business awards.
However, reviewers expect to see a level they feel is sufficient for the amount of work proposed in the application. A PI should dedicate enough time to the project to be able to effectively manage and oversee it.
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New Initiatives |
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