September 21, 2009

 
July 2, 2009

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION REQUIRED FOR ALL INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL RESEARCH

SERVICE AWARDS (NRSA) PROPOSALS

Effective with the August 8, 2009 submission date, all grant applications for the

Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellowships (F-series) will

require electronic submission through Grants.gov to eRA Commons. Paper

applications will not be accepted for submissions on or after the August 8 transition.

For the August 8 deadline, applicants should use the Adobe Form set, which can be

downloaded within the appropriate FOA. For a complete listing of Fellowship FOAs,

see the F-Kiosk: http://grants1.nih.gov/training/F_files_nrsa.htm.

Several new business processes are being implemented at NIH concurrent with the

transition to electronic submission:

1. Reference Letters: The electronic submission of reference letters is separate

from the electronic submission of applications. Reference letters are submitted

directly through the eRA Commons and do not use Grants.gov. Therefore, fellowship

applicants must follow the Reference Letter Instructions in the SF424 (R&R)

Individual Fellowship Application Guide for specific directions (Part 1, Section 5.4).

Letters of reference are an important component of the application for fellowship

support. Applicants must arrange to have at least three (but no more than five)

letters of reference submitted on their behalf to the eRA Commons Web site at:

https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/reference/submitRefereeInformation.jsp.

2. Resubmissions: Applicants may submit a resubmission application, but such

application must include an Introduction addressing the previous peer review critique

(Summary Statement). See new NIH policy on resubmission (amended) applications

(NOT-OD-09-003, NOT-OD-09-016). Please note that when resubmitting an

application electronically via Grants.gov, applicants must also resubmit their letters of

reference through the eRA Commons as described above.

3. Review Criteria: Reviewers will provide an overall impact/priority score, and will

consider each of the five criteria below in determining scientific and technical merit

and will give a separate score for each:

• Fellowship Applicant

• Sponsor(s), Collaborator(s), and Consultant(s)

• Research Training Plan

• Training Potential

• Institutional Environment and Commitment to Training

June 11 , 2009

ARRA and NIH Updates 

American Recovery and Reinvestiment Act and Wake Forest University Health Sciences Participation in the Act

Submissions:

Challenge Grants

WFUHS submitted 52 Challenge Grant applications for the April 27^th deadline and was included as a consortium on an additional 32 applications submitted by other institutions. Attached to this email is additional information from NIH regarding Challenge Grant submissions. 

Grand Opportunities (GO grants)

WFUHS submitted 7 Go grant applications for the May 29^th deadline and was included as a consortium on an additional 3 applications submitted by other institutions.

High-End Instrumentation Grant (S10)

WFUHS submitted 1 application for the May 6^th deadline.

Biomedical Research Core Centers to Enhance Research Resources (P30)

WFUHS submitted 2 applications for the May 18^th deadline.

Administrative and Competing Supplements

WFUHS has submitted over 92 supplements to a variety of Institutes at NIH.  Supplements will continue to be submitted throughout the summer.

Other Sponsors

Two applications have been submitted to the National Institute of Justice under the ARRA.

ARRA Awards Received

$6,324,718 received to date under the ARRA, breakout as follows:

Summer Research Experience Supplements – 2 awards received

R01 Reachback Funding – 2 awards received

R03 Reachback Funding -  2 awards received

R21 Reachback Funding – 5 awards received

R56 Bridge Funding – 1 award received

S10 Instrumentation Grant – 1 award received

NIH Announces New Scoring System

The NIH issued enhanced review criteria for evaluating the scientific and technical merit of applications for research grants or cooperative agreements submitted to the NIH for FY 2010 funding to support biomedical or behavioral research (NOT-OD-09-025). In addition, the NIH announced that a new, nine-point scoring system will be used for the evaluation of all applications submitted to the NIH for potential FY 2010 funding (NOT-OD-09-024).  The new scoring system will utilize a 9-point rating scale (1 = exceptional; 9 = poor). A diagram of the nine-point scoring system is attached to this email.  This scoring system will be used for all ARRA grant proposal submissions also.

April 16, 2009

Here are some late-breaking clarifications on Challenge Grant requirements. Please note that some of these are not mentioned in the RFA for Challenge Grants. However, after discussions with NIH, we have learned the following pieces of information. 

1.  The Project Summary/Abstract should not exceed 30 lines of text, on a page with 0.5 inch margins. The 30 lines include the required opening statement, describing the Challenge Topic and specific Challenge Area to be addressed in the application. 

2.      The usual 2-3 sentence brief Project Narrative (Relevance statement) is still included. This will be uploaded as a stand-alone document into InfoEd. 

3.      A Resources section should be included in the usual style (on a page with 0.5 inch margins). There are no page limits for this section, but we advise succinctness, keeping in mind the extraordinary burden on the review panels. Again, this will be uploaded as a separate document. It falls outside the 12-page limits of the Research Plan. 

If you have questions about these or other aspects of Challenge Grants, please send us an email at stimulus@wfubmc.edu. Remember, the deadline for routing is April 20.

April 9, 2009

For ARRA-Related Applications Requesting New (“TBN”) Staff

As you know, prompt beginning of work is essential to the stimulus-related funding mechanisms. Here is some language that applicants can include, in the text and/or budget justification, to assure the NIH that we are prepared to be responsive to the letter and spirit of the ARRA legislation.

Our Human Resources Department is creating an expedited system for processing job applicants when projects are being funded through the stimulus package. We expect recruitment for all positions to be highly competitive. The unemployment rate in North Carolina is currently about 10%, the fourth-highest in the country. Therefore, the applicant pool is flush with qualified candidates, which will greatly reduce the recruitment period and keep this project on track to meet its goals. 

Clarification on Project Summary/Abstract for Challenge Grants

Investigators preparing Challenge Grant applications should be aware that the 1 page referred to in the instructions means 1 full text page (.5” margins throughout). The PHS 398 form page is not required.

Reissuance of Biomedical Research Core Centers P30

The NIH has now reissued the Recovery Act Limited Competition: Biomedical Research Core Centers to Enhance Research Resources (P30). It can be found at  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-09-005.html. The link is also included on the Office of Research ARRA-related web page.

REMINDER: The NIH Institutes participating in this initiative limit the number of submissions from an institution. Institutional limitations vary by institute, so if you are planning to submit a proposal under this initiative, please send an email to stimulus@wfubmc.edu no later that April 6, 2009 stating your intent to submit and the name of the NIH institute. The Office of Research will coordinate internal reviews if we receive more than the institutional limit permitted by NIH. The NIH application deadline is May 18, 2009.

New “Pursuit” is Out!

Please check the OR web site for the Spring 2009 issue of the Pursuit newsletter, with more ARRA-related information, helpful tips, information on classes, potential funding opportunities, and more.

March 27, 2009

Challenge Grant Update

As communicated in an earlier JIT News, Challenge Grants will be prepared and submitted to Grants.gov via InfoEd.  The Challenge Grant FOA (RFA-OD-09-003) is now available in InfoEd and you can begin using InfoEd to prepare your Challenge Grant proposal.

If you have any questions regarding InfoEd or Challenge Grants, please contact your grants administrator within the Office of Reseach.  You can also send any ARRA/Stimulus questions to stimulus@wfubmc.edu.

March 18, 2009

Stimulus Funding (ARRA) :  Availability of Supplements 

NIH has released the notices for supplemental funding requests under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).  Investigators should look at the web site for their funding institute and talk to their Program Officer before sending in a supplemental request.  Competitive Supplements will be submitted to grants.gov via InfoEd; Administrative and the Summer Research supplements have special requirements and are paper submissions, please read these notices carefully.  Standard routing procedures through the Office of Research apply to all supplements.  If you have any questions regarding the submission of a supplement, or if you are planning to submit one, please let the Office of Research know.

Competitive Revision Applications (formerly called “competitive supplements”)

NOT-OD-09-058  -   http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-058.html

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces the opportunity for investigators and United States institutions/organizations with active NIH-supported research project grants (including SBIR and STTR) to submit revision applications (formerly termed competitive supplements) to support a significant expansion of the scope or research protocol of approved and funded projects. Support for these revision applications will come from funds provided to NIH through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“Recovery Act” or “ARRA”), Public Law 111-5. In addition, Recovery Act funds allocated to NIH specifically for comparative effectiveness research (CER) may be available to support supplements. Projects receiving these funds will need to meet this definition of CER: “a rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Such a study may compare similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or it may analyze very different approaches, such as surgery and drug therapy.” Such research may include the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data as they apply to CER.
Due Date: April 21, 2009

·        For 2-year administrative supplements to currently funded grants to support a significant expansion of the scope or research protocol.

·        Potential applicants should review instructions issued by their funding IC before responding. Some will consider these applications only within target areas. Institute-specific information is at http://grants.nih.gov/recovery/ic_supp.html. Not all institutes have their information posted yet, so keep checking back or confirm with your Program Officer.  Note: NHLBI is not supporting competitive revisions.  

·        Eligible grants include: 

o       R01, R03, R15, R21, R25, R33, R34, R21/R33, R41, R42, R43, R44

o       SC1, SC2, SC3

o       Program Projects, Center grants

o       Cooperative Agreements (U types)

o       Training Grants

o       Institutional Career Development Awards

·        Not appropriate solely to restore funding if awards were administratively reduced.

·        No maximum on amount requested. Equipment requested cannot exceed $100,000. Prior approval to submit a request exceeding $500,000 is not necessary.

·        For details on supplement preparation, see the Note.

·        Funding decisions and awards will be issued on or before September 30, 2009

Administrative Supplements 

NOT-OD-09-056 - http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-056.html

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces the opportunity for investigators and United States institutions/organizations with active NIH Research Grants to request administrative supplements for the purpose accelerating the tempo of scientific research on active grants. Support for these supplements will come from funds provided to NIH through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“Recovery Act” or “ARRA”), Public Law 111-5.  Consistent with the intent of the Recovery Act, the purpose of this program is to promote job creation and economic development along with accelerating the pace and achievement of scientific research.

Due Date: Open

·        For 2-year administrative supplements to currently funded grants to support work within the general scope of the parent grant.

·        Potential applicants should review instructions issued by their funding IC before responding. Some will consider these applications only within target areas.

·        No limit to the number requested by a PI or institution, although individual Institutes and Centers may limit eligibility.

·        For details on supplement preparation, see the Note. 

·        Other criteria are as listed in NOT-OD-09-058 above. 

Administrative Supplements for Summer Research Experiences for Students and Science Educators 

NOT-OD-09-060 http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-060.html

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces the opportunity for investigators and United States institutions/organizations with active NIH Research Grants to request administrative supplements for the purpose of promoting job creation, economic development, and accelerating the pace and achievement of scientific research. These supplements will also encourage students to seriously pursue research careers in the health related sciences, as well as provide elementary, middle school, and high school teachers, community college faculty, and faculty from non-research intensive institutions with short term research experiences in NIH-funded laboratories.

Support for these supplements will come from funds provided to NIH through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“Recovery Act” or “ARRA”), Public Law 111-5. In addition, Recovery Act funds allocated to NIH specifically for comparative effectiveness research (CER) may be available to support supplements. Projects receiving these funds will need to meet this definition of CER: “a rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Such a study may compare similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or it may analyze very different approaches, such as surgery and drug therapy.” Such research may include the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data as they apply to CER. 

Due date: Open

·        For 2-year administrative supplements to currently funded grants, to a) encourage students to pursue careers in health-related research, and b) provide teachers, community college faculty, and faculty from non-research-intensive institutions with short-term research experiences in NIH-funded laboratories

·        Potential applicants should review instructions issued by their funding IC before responding. Some will consider these applications only within target areas.

·        Proposed work must be within the general scope of the parent grant.

·        No limit to the number requested by a PI or institution, although individual Institutes and Centers may limit eligibility.

·        Not appropriate solely to restore funding if awards were administratively reduced.

·        For details on supplement preparation (including dollar limits for participants), see the Note.

March 8, 2009

Recovery Act funding opportunity announcements from NCRR  

The programs listed below do not require institutional cost share.   Please note that the G20 and C06 mechanisms have a limit on the number of applications that an Institution can submit.  If you plan on submitting a proposal for any of the programs listed, please notify Paula Means and/or Vicky Zickmund in the Office of Research as soon as possible as we have formed task forces to coordinate these efforts..

RFA-RR-09-007 Core Facility Renovation, Repair, and Improvement (G20) http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-RR-09-007.html. Deadline: September 17, 2009  

RFA-RR-09-008  Extramural Research Facilities Improvement Program (C06)  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-RR-09-008.html. Deadline - multiple deadlines beginning May 6, 2009

PAR-09-118 High End Instrumentation Program  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-09-118.html. Deadline - LOI: April 6, 2009  

PAR-09-028  Shared Instrument Grant Program http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-09-028.html and http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-RR-09-008.html.  Deadline - March 23, 2009

Challenge Grants Update

The RFA for NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research was released earlier this week.  See http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-09-003.html.   There were several questions asked at the Town Hall Meeting regarding this RFA, that we were unable to address at that time.  See below for updates:

Q.      How will Challenge Grants be submitted?

A.       Challenge Grants will be electronic submissions to Grants.Gov, and will be prepared and submitted via InfoEd. You will need to know the RFA # OD-09-003 in order to start your application in InfoEd. Please note that Challenge Grants will require a detailed budget.

Q.     Can an individual PI submit more than one Challenge Grant proposal?

A.     Yes, individuals can submit more than one proposal if they are scientifically distinct.

Q.   Can a Challenge Grant proposal include a foreign component?

A.   A clarification was issued in the March 6, NIH Guide, see below:

Domestic (United States) institutions/organizations (i.e., those located in the 50 states, territories and possessions of the United States, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, or District of Columbia) who are planning to submit applications that include foreign components should be aware that requested funding for any foreign component should not exceed 10% of the total requested direct costs or $25,000 (aggregate total for all subcontracts and subawards), whichever is less. 

Website Coming Soon

An Institutional “Stimulus Funding” website as part of the Office of Research website is being developed and will be available by March 11th.  This website will include links to all agencies offering stimulus funding; an archive of past JIT News; FAQs; links to RFAs and updates on the stimulus funding as it is made available.  

Task Forces Update

The OR is forming several task forces to facilitate and coordinate efforts associated with the ARRA.  These include: 

The Equipment/Instrumentation Task Force which is charged “to facilitate opportunities in acquiring funds for shared equipment that have been made available through the ARRA (i.e. Stimulus Package).  The task force will evaluate WFUHS’ opportunities associated with equipment, cores, and related topics that potentially meet criteria for new ARRA funding, and consider possible synergies that may increase the competitiveness of proposals.  As part of the evaluation, the task force will also consider redundancies, and the potential impact on WFUHS’ operating budget (institutional support/Fund 01) to cover costs such as personnel, maintenance agreements, etc.”

The Task Force is meeting two times during the week on March 9, 2009 to begin looking at potential grant proposals to the Share Instrumentation Program Announcement (due March 23, 2009).  If you are planning to submit in response to this program, please send the following information to Vicky Zickmund (vzickmun@wfubmc.ed) in the Office of Research.

1.   Information about the Equipment

2.   Short summary of the science

3.   Information about the user group

4.  Cost information:  specifically of the overall costs, how much will be  covered by the grant, how much will the institution be asked to cover (one time and on-going).

Additional Task Forces on Human Resources/Hiring, Informatics (Clinical and Research), and Renovation/Building are under development.  Please contact VickyZickmund if you have any questions regarding any of these at vzickmun@wfubmc.edu

March 4, 2009

February 27, 2009

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Reviewed but not funded proposals:

The Office of Research has already received a number of requests for additional information on pending projects that have gone through the peer review process and are now being considered for possible funding under ARRA.  The majority of these projects were submitted in early 2008 and involved R03’s and R21’s, though we have seen at least one RO1.  All requests received thus far have had required response times of 1 – 5 days.  If you are notified and need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.  

Supplements to existing funded grants/contracts:

As communicated earlier, institutes and centers are considering allocating funds for both administrative and technical (competing) supplements. We do not know how much funding will actually be available through this mechanism.  Further, the amount allocated will most likely vary by institute and center.  We are aware of faculty who have been contacted by their Program Officers soliciting ideas for supplements related to their currently funded projects. At this point, the focus of criteria for these responses appear to be:

• Activities within the scope of the current grant and cannot extend beyond the current funding period of the grant
• Requests should include strategies for job creation and retention
• NCRR has specifically stated a particular interest in activities related to translational science (e.g.moving research from animal subjects to humans and consortium-based activities)
• There is also interest in supplements that could be used for early career faculty, graduate students and post-doctoral scholars 

Challenge Grants:

As noted in the earlier communication, an RFA is expected bo be released within the next couple of weeks as Challenge Grants.  The OR will watch the Federal Register carefully and let you know as soon as this is published.  Current thinking is that these will be reviewed in time to go to the September Councils.

This new program will support research on topic areas, identified by the NIH, which address specific scientific and health research challenges that would benefit from significant 2-year jump start funds. These will be handled within the respective institutes and centers and each will have its own area of emphasis.  It may be of value for you to review the strategic planning documents of the I/C which is consistent with your area of expertise.

o       Challenge areas will focus on knowledge gaps, scientific opportunities, new technologies, data generation, or research methods that would benefit from an influx of funds to quickly advance the area in significant ways.  NIH Institutes and Centers are presently considering areas that would have high impact in science and/or public health and that will attract sizable numbers of applications.

o       The amount to be allocated under this mechanism is not known as yet. Applications are expected to have a 12-page limit.

• It is expected that non-modular budgets of up to $500,000 total costs per year for up to two-years may be requested.

The Office of Research will be formally tracking all requests related to the ARRA as well as flagging all awards received related to this act. Also, as we learn more about what each institute or center is doing with their funds, we will notify you. If you are contacted by your program,officer please let us know with a brief email so we can track this.  Also, we are happy to assist you in responding to your program officer if you have any questions or need additional information.

National Science Foundation (NSF)

NSF is slated to receive an additional $3 billion from the ARRA to enable US investment in American’s scientific enterprise.  The allocation will be as noted below:

• $2B will be distributed through its regular, peer-reviewed grant process;
• $300M will go to the Major Research Instrumentation program
• $400M to the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) program
• $200M will restart the Academic Research Infrastructure program, dormant since FY 1996, for competitively awarded laboratory construction grants, primarily for universities;
• $100M for education and human resources (EHR)

NSF has indicated that they do not intend to provide supplemental funding to existing awards under the ARRA.

Special Reporting Requirements 

Per the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), recipients of Recovery Act funds will be required to provide quarterly reports ten days after the end of each calendar quarter, beginning July 10, 2009.  Reports will include but are not limited to the following data elements:

• Total amount of recovery funds received from that agency
• Total amount of recover funds that were obligated and expended to projects or activities
• An evaluation of the completion status of the project or activity, and
• An estimate of the number of jobs created and number of jobs retained by the project or activity (i.e., allied health workers, technicians, students, administrative staff, etc.)

OMB has emphasized that if a researcher or institution can not spend the funds within the two year window, they should not apply.  At this point they are stating that no-cost extensions and carryover of funds will not be considered.

On February 18, 2009, OMB issued a guidance document directing agencies to engage in aggressive outreach to potential applicants to begin application planning activities.  OMB emphasized  that agencies must adapt current performance evaluation and review processes to include the program or activity, and program and economic outcomes, consistent with Recovery Act requirements.  For additional information on OMB guidance to agencies see http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_fy2009/m09-10.pdf.

Please contact the Office of Research if you have any questions or need help responding to a request from NIH.

September 4, 2008

INFORMATION FROM GRANTS ADMINISTRATION REGARDING PROPOSAL ROUTING, REVIEW AND SUBMISSION

Effective immediately, Grants Administration will require the complete, signed proposal route form for review. Proposal route forms without all required signatures (PI, Chair, Co-Investigators) will not be accepted and review of the proposal cannot begin until a complete, signed route form is received.
The route form submitted to Grants Administration must be the original version, scanned or faxed versions are not acceptable.  Due to audit regulations the original signatures must be kept on file with the proposal, once electronic routing via InfoEd is fully implemented the need for the original route form will not be necessary.  We hope to have electronic routing in place in early 2009 and appreciate your patience during this transition time.
Please remember that the Office of Research requires a minimum of five working days after departmental approval for institutional approval. The five day lead-time is essential for a thorough review and timely submission. We will make every effort to process proposals received after the five day deadline, but we cannot guarantee a sufficient review and timely proposal submission. Final proposals (including the original route form with all signatures) must be received in the Office of Research by noon 5 days prior to the sponsor deadline.

July 29, 2008

REMINDER – NIH DEADLINE

The NIH submission deadline will be Monday, July 7th, since July 5th, falls on Saturday.  Please keep in mind that the Office of Research will be closed on Friday, July 4th.   As a reminder, the Office of Research requires 5 working days prior to the sponsor deadline for review of proposals, which for the July 7th deadline will be Monday June 30th.  We will make every effort to submit proposals received, but can not guarantee a sufficient review and timely submission for those received after June 30th.  We appreciate your cooperation and understanding, and we will work with you in an effort to make each submission successful.

Thank you.
Office of Research Administration

Browse past announcements below: