Tag: NIH Grants Policy Statement

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Updated Council Review and Oversight Policy for Well-Funded Laboratories

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NIGMS staff members always closely examine each principal investigator’s (PI’s) other research support when making funding recommendations and awards. In addition, the Institute has several policies to ensure a diversified portfolio of grants. At the May 20, 2021, NAGMS Advisory Council meeting, councilors approved our updated NIGMS guidelines for funding investigators with substantial other research support. Informally, this was known as our $750K policy. What’s the policy, and why are we changing it now? 

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Beware the New NIH Appendix Policy and How to Navigate the Changes

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Trying to navigate changes in NIH grant application policy can be a daunting task. Moreover, when these policy changes bypass the radar of applicants, the result can be an unwelcome outcome. This was the case most recently for many grant applicants who did not follow the new NIH policy limiting the types of appendix materials allowed for applications with due dates on or after January 25, 2017. This policy was first advertised last August to allow sufficient time for applicants to absorb the change. Unfortunately, many of the grant applications assigned to NIGMS came in for the January 25 receipt date with non-compliant appendix materials, resulting in their withdrawal by NIH. We at NIGMS are very aware of the pain and frustration felt by applicants and institutional authorized officials when applications are withdrawn. In the hope of minimizing the number of withdrawals due to non-compliant appendices for upcoming receipt dates, here are some important reminders:

  1. Under the new policy, almost nothing is allowed as appendix material unless specifically requested in the funding opportunity announcement (FOA).
  2. The few remaining materials that are still allowed are very specialized and do not apply to most FOAs.
  3. If the FOA you apply for is one that does allow or specifically requests certain types of appendix materials, be sure to include only what is allowed. If you include any additional materials, your application will be considered non-compliant and will almost certainly be withdrawn.
  4. Do not use application sections that have unrestricted page limits (e.g., the Other Attachments section) as a surrogate location for appendix materials that are no longer allowed because this also will result in your application being withdrawn as non-compliant.
  5. Lastly, be sure you are reading the most up-to-date versions of the FOA and SF424 instructions, as the materials that are and are not allowed in an application may have changed from previous versions.

One of the best resources to help you stay on top of new and upcoming changes is the Notices of NIH Policy Changes on the Office of Extramural Research website—please check this site frequently. And, as always, NIGMS program and review staff are available to answer any questions.

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Why Is It important to Accurately Acknowledge NIGMS Grants in Publications?

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As we’ve pointed out, it’s important to acknowledge your NIH funding in all your publications, including research articles, press releases and other documents about NIH-supported research. Your Notice of Award includes information about such acknowledgements (also see Requirements for Acknowledging NIH-Supported Research and Attribution of NIH/NIGMS Support).

If you have more than one NIGMS or NIH award, you should only cite the grant(s) that supported the research described in the publication. The specific aims should be the determining factor. This would apply even in cases where one of the authors on the article (e.g., a technician) works on multiple projects and is paid through multiple grants, or when equipment used in the reported work was purchased on a different grant.

Acknowledging multiple awards in a publication may be taken as an indicator of scientific overlap among the cited projects. This becomes important when your next application is being considered by reviewers, NIGMS Advisory Council members and NIGMS staff. For example, when considering support of research in well-funded laboratories, our Advisory Council expects the Institute to support projects only if they are highly promising and distinct from other funded work in the laboratory.

So, please take a moment to make sure that you are citing your grants accurately in your publications and avoid pitfalls when you send in your next application.

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Tips for Preparing Your Progress Report

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The annual Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) is how we assess progress toward your funded project’s goals and whether your project is in compliance with guidelines set forth in the NIH Grants Policy Statement. The designated grants management specialist and program official (PO, also known as program director) review each progress report. After these staff members approve the report, we can issue a notice of award for the noncompeting continuation of the grant.

Typically, this administrative review is a straightforward process, but sometimes issues arise that can delay the processing of the award and create additional work for everyone involved.  Here are some of the most common issues we encounter:

  • Public access compliance: Before initiating the RPPR, you should enter all appropriate citations into your NCBI My Bibliography, associate them with the appropriate grant number and select the citations to include in this year’s RPPR. The RPPR software will then complete Section C.1 automatically. When noncompliant publications are identified, you should immediately begin (or complete) the process of bringing those publications into compliance.
  • Publication reporting in the RPPR: List publications in Section C of the progress report, not in Section B.2, “What was accomplished…,” or elsewhere in the text. For more details, see Janna Wehrle’s post on Progress Reports and the Public Access Policy.
  • Change in scope: A request for a change in project scope is a prior approval request that must be submitted by your Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) and requires review by the grants management specialist and PO; this is done separately from the progress report review. Please remember that adding human subjects and/or vertebrate animals to a grant that previously did not have these activities is considered a change in scope.
  • Discrepancies in answers to RPPR questions: Please double-check your responses to questions about the administrative aspects of your grant. Inconsistent answers to these questions often trigger a flurry of e-mails from us requesting clarification from the AOR and investigator. In my experience, the most common issues involve changes in other support, key personnel and vertebrate animal use, or they indicate a change when none exists.
  • Description of collaborations: Please adequately describe how any collaborations contribute to the project. This is especially important for collaborations with foreign investigators and collaborations involving the sharing of samples from human subjects or vertebrate animals.
  • Level of effort: Be sure to use whole numbers to report person-months of effort on a grant.

Finally, your progress report should include a relatively brief description of the project’s scientific progress in the last funding period. We want to know what you think are your most impactful and exciting discoveries from the past year, as well as where the project is headed in the next funding period. Reading these descriptions is one of the most interesting parts of my job.

When in doubt on what to include in the progress report, contact your PO.