Bill Caskey talked about some of the nitty gritty details
of the NIH Grant process. His talk focused mostly on what happens after a
grant gets funded.
NIH started as a one-room Laboroatory of Hygine in 1887.
There are 27 separate institutes and centers. They estimate the budget to be
28 billion in 2005 and 38 thousand research project grants. You should visit
their web site at
www.nih.gov.
There are a number of things that can slow down the award
process:
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Budgets with inadequate justification,
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Delays in sending Just in Time (JIT) information,
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Missing information for key personnel,
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Other support indicates scientific, budgetary, or
commitment overlap (80% is a magic number. If you exceed,
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Checklist F&A that doesn't make sense, Most of these
are incorrect.
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Out of date IRB/IACUC approvals
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Lack of population data for clinical grants
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Information sent without identification, (NIH gets 30
thousand grant applications on each grant deadline).
-
Lack of appropriate institutional signatures.
When you get the Notice of Grant Award (NGA), you should
read it. It has the terms and conditions, citing the Code of Federal
Regulation (government-wide requirements) and the Grants Policy Statement (the
NIH specific requirements), information about the closeout term, and grant
specific information about restrictions and what must be done by when to
remove restrictions. Failure to follow any restriction means disallowance of
costs. It also gives the name of the Grants Management Officer who signed the
NGA, contact information for the Grants Specialist and the Grants Officer. You
should know these names!
You need prior approval from the NIH in the change in the
scope of work, pre-award costs more than 90 days prior to effiective date of
new or competing award, change in key personnel, change in grantee
institution, change in grantee status, or addition of a foreign component, any
activities disapproved or restricted.
A change in scope usually means a change in specific
aims, substitution of one animal model for another, change from approved use
of animals or human subjects, shift in research emphasis to different disease
area, application of a new technology (i.e., changing to a different type of
assay), significant rebudgeting (more than 25% of total direct costs
awarded).
Withdrawal of the PI or key personnel, absence for period
of 3 continuous months, reduction of percent effort by a quarter or more.
Unobligated funds of more than 25% of the current project
period budget indicates either lack of progress, or perhaps the PI has asked
for an excessive budget.
You can ask for a supplemental request for a single
isolated emergency, unanticipated cost increases, bridge funding to maintain
project momentum, near certain major advance, and minority/disability/reentry
supplement.
If you have more than one NIH grant, if a cost cannot be
reasonably allocated to a specific project, it can be charged to any or all of
the benefiting projects on any reasonable basis.
You can't have 0% commitment to a project and still be
listed as a key personnel.
The PHS 398 form has been revised, and the NIH is trying
to harmonize this with electronic submissions. You may need to get a NIH
Commons ID.
SNAP Streamlined Noncompeting Application Process
Data sharing requirements. Required for all applications
requesting at least $500,000 (direct costs) in any single budget period, or
you need to state why data sharing is not possible. You can request funds for
data sharing and archiving. The plan needs to be assessed by the NIH program
staff and any concerns have to be resolved prior to award.
Failure to submit timely reports may affect future
funding for you and/or your institution.
The NIH Commons
is worth looking at. This is an effort to streamline much of the grants
process. In particular, you can now optionally submit competitive grants
electronically.
