Monthly Archives: August 2012

NIH Moves Towards Electronic Payments to Foreign Institutions

Posted on by
Reply

Starting on October 1, 2012, NIH will begin to transition payments for all foreign grantee institutions to the Payment Management System (PMS) using B subaccounts.  This new policy affects the procedure for carrying over an unobligated balance into FY2013. In order to carryover an unobligated, foreign grantees will need to follow the procedure outlined in the Guide Notice.

There is also a new policy for FFR reporting for awards to foreign grantees issued under the Streamlined Non-Competing Award Process (SNAP).  For SNAP awards made after October 1, 2012, FFR expenditure data is required only at the end of a competitive segment rather than annually.

For more details on the policies and procedural changes for foreign grantees, see NOT-OD-12-139.

Apply Now for the NIH Loan Repayment Programs

Posted on by
Reply

If you are a researcher who has incurred significant educational debt, then the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) are for you.  In exchange for a two-year commitment to conduct biomedical or behavioral research funded by a nonprofit or government institution, the awards repay up to $35,000 of student loan debt annually. On average, nearly 40 percent of all new LRP applications are funded and the awards are renewable. To apply, visit www.lrp.nih.gov. The 2013 application cycle opens Sept. 1 and closes Nov. 15 at 8:00 p.m. EST.

Who and What We Fund

To qualify for this program–

  • your research must fit within one of five program areas
    • clinical research
    • pediatric research
    • health disparities research
    • contraception and infertility research
    • clinical research for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. 
  • possess a doctoral-level degree (with the exception of the contraception and infertility research LRP)
  • devote at least 20 hours per week to research funded by a domestic nonprofit, university or government entity
  • have educational loan debt equal to or exceeding 20 percent of your annual institutional base salary
  • be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident

Interested in Applying?

Here are some helpful resources:

For additional assistance, call or e-mail the LRP Information Center at (866) 849-4047 or lrp@nih.gov. Also, receive application cycle updates through Twitter @NIH_LRP or Facebook.

Do More Applications Mean More Awards?

Posted on by
23

In an earlier post we examined the number of competing applications for investigator-initiated research project grants (RPGs) over time and found that, in the past decade or so, most of the increase in submitted applications is due to more applicants rather than more applications per investigator. Nevertheless, we did see a slight rise in the average number of applications per applicant (from 1.3 in 1998 to 1.5 per year in 2011).

Looking at the average of the entire population of applicants could mask interesting variations in the data. To try to reveal such variations we decided to delve a little deeper into the top 100 NIH-supported institutions using the same data set as in the previous post (i.e., only investigator-initiated competing applications for RPGs, Recovery Act excluded). The figure below shows a scatter plot of the average number of applications per principal investigator (PI) at those institutions over 5 years, from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2011 (each point represents an institution). We used the average number of applications/PI at each institution so that the analysis would not be skewed by differences in the number of investigators at each institution. The first thing you can see is that although the average number of applications per PI is quite variable, it clusters between 2.5—4 applications/PI over the 5 year period.

We also considered the question of what correlation might exist between the number of applications submitted and the percentage of funded applications at each institution. It is evident from the data that, even within our top 100 funded organizations, institutions with similar averages of submitted applications per PI can have very different levels of success. For example, among institutions with an average of 2.9—3.1 applications/PI, anywhere from 11% to 30% of the applications were funded.

Graph plotting the percent of funded applications against the average number of applications submitted per PI for the top 100 NIH-funded institutions.

Of course, there may be many reasons for this variability in funding rates, such as differences in the types of science conducted at different institutions and the capabilities of the applicants. Another possibility is that that there are differences in the management practices of each institution and how institutions review or vet applications before submission. Whatever the reason, we don’t see a strong correlation between the average number of applications submitted per PI and the percent of funded applications.

New Podcast on Submitting the Federal Financial Report (FFR)

Posted on by
Reply

All About Grants logo

In this episode of our All About Grants podcast series, Renee Livshin, a grants management specialist with NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, discusses important details of the Federal Financial Report (FFR), including report submission, its role in grant closeout and who to contact for help along the way. To learn more about NIH grants, visit www.grants.nih.gov.

To view past podcasts and transcripts, visit our podcast page. 

To get new podcasts as they are released, subscribe by visiting us on iTunes or catch our podcast RSS using your favorite software.

It’s Been a Year — Time to Implement the New Regulations on Financial Conflict of Interest

Posted on by
1

As you may remember, last summer the Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule in the Federal Register revising the regulations on financial conflicts of interest of extramural investigators. (For details on the major changes to the regulations, see the Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) website for a side-by-side comparison of the 1995 and 2011 regulations.) The regulations specified an implementation period of up to one year which ends today — August 24, 2012.

Over the past year I’ve spent a lot of time discussing the provisions of the new regulation pertaining to grants and cooperative agreements with many of you. Members of my staff have compiled extensive responses to the questions we received from you and your institutions. 

I’ve heard many questions about how we will monitor compliance with the revised regulations. We have developed a proactive compliance oversight program that will initially focus on the new FCOI policies that institutions are required to develop and post on the web. This will not only help us see how you’re doing  but will also help us identify best practices. Stay tuned as we will be reaching out to various institutions to assess compliance and help those that may need assistance with any other aspects of the new regulation. Thanks to all of you for the  hard work you’ve put in to implement all the new requirements and I appreciate your dedication as we partner to ensure objectivity in NIH-sponsored research.

What Is the Current Salary Cap?

Posted on by
2

The current salary cap is $179,700 (Executive Level II), effective for awards issued 12/23/11 or later.   

  •  If an individual’s institutional-based salary exceeds the cap, the grantee may not charge more than the limit in effect at the time of the initial issue date (see FAQs for more details). 
  •  Grantee organizations may provide additional salary–just not with NIH funds. 
  •  The cap does not apply to consultants. 
  • The cap does apply to subawards and contracts under an award.