NIH will open the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) for all Type 5 non-SNAP progress reports on April 25, 2014.
NIH requires use of the RPPR module to submit progress reports for Streamlined Non-competing Award Process (SNAP), fellowship, and multi-year funded awards. NIH is continuing efforts to implement the RPPR module for non-SNAP awards. See details at (NOT-OD-14-064).
Do you find yourself repeating the same NIH Guide search over and over again looking for funding opportunity announcements? If the answer is yes, check out the new NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. It allows you to be notified when new NIH Guide postings match your search criteria. Just provide your email and the system will email you with new funding opportunity announcements and/or notices that interest you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis (your choice).
New to the NIH grants process? Looking for some direction? A new YouTube video, The NIH Grants Process: the Big Picture, produced by the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER), provides a high-level overview of the grants process from application to award.
As you begin to navigate the NIH grants process, be sure to bookmark grants.nih.gov for many more online resources. These include guidance on the various aspects of the grants process, podcasts, webinars, policy information, the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts, and so much more. More videos related to NIH grants information may be also be found on on YouTube.
General policy notices from NIH.
Notice establishing stipend levels for fiscal year (FY) 2014 Kirschstein-NRSA awards for undergraduate, predoctoral, and postdoctoral trainees and fellows.
Notice of Salary Limitation on Grants, Cooperative Agreements, and Contracts
Information regarding the salary limitation for NIH grant and cooperative agreement awards and extramural research and development contract awards.
Notice of Legislative Mandates in Effect for FY2014
The FY 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 (Public Law 113-76) signed into law on January 17, 2014 provides funding to NIH for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014. The intent of this Notice is to provide information on the following statutory provisions that limit the use of funds on NIH grant, cooperative agreement, and contract awards for FY2014.
For PIs working with the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute:
The NHLBI will fund investigator-initiated R01 competing applications, regardless of percentile or priority score, for four years or less. The only exceptions to this policy are:
These excepted applications will generally be awarded for the full length of their National Heart, Lung, and Blood Advisory Council (NHLBAC) recommended project period.
For researchers who submit to NIH, please note the following changes to eSubmission requirements. Please contact your Grants administrator if you have questions.
Don’t Forget Your Inclusion Data
The new FORMS-C application packages use a different approach for collecting inclusion data. In addition to reformatting the data tables themselves, inclusion data is no longer collected in PDF attachments. Instead, each package includes new Planned Enrollment Report and Cumulative Inclusion Enrollment forms. These forms allow NIH to collect the data in a format that can be leveraged throughout the lifecycle of the application/grant.
The forms are included in the application packages as ‘Optional’ and eRA systems no longer provide an error when inclusion data is omitted. However, our policies on when to include the data in your application have not changed. Applicants must carefully follow application guide and supplemental instructions to ensure the new forms are included when needed. A handy decision tree was recently posted that can also help determine whether the inclusion reporting policies apply to your specific application.
FORMS-C Budget Forms and PD/PIs
The latest version of the R&R Budget form developed by Grants.gov includes some changes in how data is entered. Although the PD/PI name provided on the SF424 R&R cover form is still used to auto-populate the first Senior/Key Person entry in Section A, the Project Role filed for that entry no longer defaults to ‘PD/PI’ and must be manually entered. As a result, more applicants have been running into the following error:
There must be a Personnel entry (with a role of “PD/PI”) listed for the PI or PD on the 424 RR Detailed Budget Page (section A&B) for budget year <x>. (5.7.1)
It is critical to type the string ‘PD/PI’ – NOT ‘PI’ or ‘PI/PD’ or ‘Principal Investigator’ or ‘Co-PD/PI’ – you must use ‘PD/PI’ or you will get that dreaded error. So, please add this to your pre-submission application checks to avoid a corrective submission.
K, F, T and D Programs Moving to Updated Electronic Application Forms (FORMS-C)
A reminder notice regarding the transition of Career Development (Ks), Fellowship (Fs), Training (Ts/Ds) programs to updated electronic application forms (NOT-OD-14-027).
More Multi-project Activity Codes Moving to Electronic Submission
The second group of activity codes in our transition timeline (G12, P30, P40, P41, P42, P51, P60, R28, S06, U10, U41, U42, U45, U56, UC7) move to electronic application submission for due dates on/after January 25, 2014 (NOT-OD-13-075).
If you are planning to apply to a multi-project program in the near future, you may want to become familiar with the resources available to help you through the electronic submission process:
NIH has issued on update to the NIH policy on continuous submission (see NOT-OD-11-093, NOT-OD-09-155, and related notices). Continuous submission eligibility for appointed members of Chartered standing NIH Study Sections, NIH Boards of Scientific Counselors, NIH Advisory Boards or Councils, NIH Program Advisory Committees, and reviewers with recent substantial service has not changed.
Federal agencies are beginning to issue guidance on their operations following the government shutdown that ended last week. See information below. Additional notices are expected to be issued, so check funding agency information frequently, or contact your grants officer.
NIH
In a nutshell, grant application deadlines, processing, reviews, peer review meetings, payments, reporting and other aspects of NIH extramural research operations have been affected, including delays or rescheduling. Federal Notices explaining specific changes have been issued.
See Federal Notices of October 17 and October 18. You can also read their interpretation in NIH’s “Rock Talk,” from Sally Rockey, NIH Deputy Director of Extramural Research.
Oct. 22 Update: See the latest notice on rescheduled deadlines, meetings, etc. See Sally Rockey’s interpretation.
NSF
NSF also is recovering from the funding lapse. See a webpage with all notices about funding actions.
NIH has posted a Notice in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts announcing that NIH encourages grantees to develop an institutional policy requiring an Individual Development Plan (IDP) for every graduate student and postdoc supported by any NIH grant, regardless of the type of NIH grant that is used for support.
IDPs are a useful tool to help graduate students and postdocs identify their career goals and what they need to accomplish to achieve those goals. The IDP process also can facilitate communication between faculty mentors and their trainees.
Read more from NIH on how this came about from NIH. Read the Notice.
