Year: 2009

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Clearing Up Confusion about Supplement Length and Budget Limits

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Recovery.gov - NIGMS Information

I’d like to address several questions about supplement length and budget limits that were submitted after my last post on requesting Recovery Act administrative supplements.

Supplement Length

You can request a Recovery Act administrative supplement for the remaining active period of a current award. The supplement should not exceed two years if you have more than two years remaining on your award.

Please note that after July 15, 2009, NIGMS will only consider requests for one-year supplements. Also note that you can invoke a no-cost extension (NCE) of your grant through the Commons when your grant is within 90 days of its end date. This applies only to the first request; subsequent ones must be reviewed by NIGMS.

Let’s look at two scenarios:

SituationApproaches
Your award is within 90 days of its end date in Fiscal Year 2009You may invoke a one-year NCE through the Commons and then submit an administrative supplement request with the same end date as the NCE
Your award end date is in FY 2010If your grant is already in an extension, you should request support not to exceed the current end date. If you think you need additional time as you approach the 2010 end date, you can request another extension and another administrative supplement.If your grant is active but not in an extension, you can in your supplement request state your intent to invoke an extension and request support through the projected end date.

 

NOTE: Your institution is responsible for processing the NCE at the appropriate time.

Budget Limits

Formally, you may request any amount for an administrative supplement that fits within the scope of the parent grant and can be justified accordingly. In practice, this means that supplement awards are almost always much less than annual budgets.

As for equipment, $100,000 is a longstanding threshold. But in today’s world, there are many examples of equipment used by a single lab that cost north of that amount, and we will carefully consider such requests. We look at the total amount requested, whether it’s for one piece of equipment or several.

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Tips for Requesting Recovery Act Administrative Supplements

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Recovery.gov - NIGMS InformationAs you may well expect, we’ve had a vigorous response so far from grantees inquiring about submitting requests for the Recovery Act administrative supplements funding opportunity.

We think we’ve set up a pretty good system to expeditiously process requests—once they are complete.

If you’re thinking about submitting a request, you should know:

1. A complete package on the first submission makes everyone’s life easier, and

2. We have our own NIGMS-specific requirements.

Our experience to date is that submissions need to be clearer about:

1. How the proposed activities fall within the current aims (i.e., are not a change in scope), and

2. The money stuff—other current and pending support, including Recovery Act requests; current status of funds and expenditure plans.

We also need a brief (25-word) summary of the proposed activity that indicates its public health relevance, as appropriate. HHS intends to post this text on its Recovery Act Web site. Some examples are in our guidance document.

I get many questions about whether there is a deadline for administrative supplement requests. We need your submissions by July 15, 2009 for FY2009 funding consideration. Please don’t wait until the last minute to send us your materials. Getting them in early is in everyone’s interest.

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NIGMS Home Page Now Easier to Navigate

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I’m pleased to announce that the NIGMS Web site has a new look, making it easier for you to navigate.

New features include a large, center area with rotating “slides” and prominent links to our most popular pages, including the NIGMS Recovery Act site. You can quickly find the latest funding opportunities or search for them. Also, “bookmark and share” links let you easily share our Web material with others.

The new layout retains the site’s current tabbed navigation, but we plan to change this when we overhaul the site later this year.

Screenshot of NIGMS Home Page

I welcome your feedback on the new design and your ideas for the complete revamp. You can send your comments to webmaster@nigms.nih.gov.

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Your Grants and the Draft Stem Cell Guidelines

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Comment on NIH Draft Stem Cell GuidelinesNIH’s draft guidelines for human stem cell research (link no longer available) are now published in the Federal Register for public comment (link no longer available) within the next 30 days. I encourage you to read them and submit your comments.

Here are a few key points about the draft guidelines:

  • They allow NIH funding for research using human embryonic stem cells derived from embryos created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) for reproductive purposes and no longer needed for that purpose.
  • They describe the conditions and informed consent procedures required during the derivation of human embryonic stem cells used for NIH-supported research.
  • They support continued research using adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells.
  • They do NOT allow NIH funding for research using human embryonic stem cells derived from other sources, including somatic cell nuclear transfer, parthenogenesis and/or IVF embryos created for research purposes.

If you currently have a grant, have a pending competing grant application, have an application for an administrative supplement, or are planning to submit an application involving human stem cells, you should read NIH Guide NOT-OD-09-085. It describes the status of ongoing research using human stem cells and how NIH will handle stem cell applications—including those in response to Recovery Act funding announcements—while the guidelines are being finalized.

Use the “Post a Comment” or e-mail links above to send me your questions about these grant policies.

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Answering Your Recovery Act Questions

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Recovery Act Logo - Recovery.govWelcome to the new Feedback Loop site, the place to get NIGMS news as it happens.

For this first post, I want to update you on NIH and NIGMS Recovery Act funding plans and opportunities. If you have questions about administrative supplements, revisions or two-year R01s, you should read the FAQs we just posted on the NIGMS Recovery Act Web site.

We want this resource to be as useful as possible, so I encourage you to let us know if you have questions that aren’t answered in our FAQs or in the NIH FAQs we link to. One way to do this is by submitting a comment to this post.

Also be sure to visit our updated NIGMS Recovery Act guidance document. It includes information on three recent NIH notices:

We plan to make new Feedback Loop posts about once a week and focus on one or a few topics each time, so you can quickly get the information you need. We’ll also organize previous posts by topic so you can easily find them.

If you would like to get new content automatically, you can sign up to receive it by e-mail or RSS feed. Of course, you can change your subscription options at any time.

Please tell your colleagues about the site and encourage them to subscribe, as well.