NIH has a 28-30 billion annaul budget with more than 80% going to support outside training and research, including grants to more than 3000 universiteis, medical schols and other research institutions. These funds are allocated in a competitve process, using peer review by independent scientists to idntify proposals. Over 80k applications are received a year. The NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) reviews and assigns priorites to 2/3 of the applications. After an application has been assessed by a CSR managed study section, CSR sends to the NIH institutes and centers a summary statement containing a score (and, in most cases a percentile ranking), the peer reviewer’s comments and resume of review discucussions.

The investigator-initiated (R01) grant application is very long, nearly 25 dense pages with unlimited appendices.

Scientists are very familiar with grant application writing to the NIH because their research depends on obtaining funds from such grants. Links to NIH grant procedures are listed below and may also be of interest to the biotechnology rant is less likely to acheive tenure. startup company.

Institutes, Centers & Offices Office of Extramural Research NIHapplications&forms NIH receipt dates NIH review process NIH guide for grants NIH Funding NIH grant guidelines NIH Training and Fellowships NIH computer retrieval on scientific projects NIH Award Data Program Announcements

Types of Grants: These awards are designed to reflect where a PhD is in their career from the point of a graduate student (T32/F31) to just Ph.D. (F32 or T32)

Ph.D. Career

T32: Institutional training grant (NRSA), has pre & postdoc slots

F31: individual minority predoc fellowship (NRSA)

F32: Individual postdoc fellowship (NRSA)

F33: Sr. postdoc fellowship (NRSA)

RO3:small grant

R21: exploratory developmental research grant

RO1: research grant.

KO2: independent scientists Award

K22: research scholar development award. transition award (postdoc-to-asst.professor). 2 yr award. No mentored phase. Awardee gets funds at the time of becoming asst. professor. $250k + 8% F&A costs. Total Cost=$270k.

K99/ROO: pathway to independence award. Citizenship and green card not required. Has a mentored phase (K99) and an independent phase (R00). NIAID committed to only a few of these awards since already had a successful transition award (K22) . 1 yr mentored phase ($90k/yr). Awardee becomes asst. professor.

R37: merit award

M.D. Career

T35: short-term training grant for health professional students

F33: sr. posdoctoral fellowship (NRSA)

K08: mentored clinical scientist development award

K23: mentored patient orietned research career development award. 3 or 5 yr award. Salary: 75 + FBs/yr. Fesearch support: 25k/yr

K24: mid career investigator in patient oriented research

Plus all mechanisms from Ph.D. track

Before You Submit :

(1) contact your scientific review adminstrator (SRA) to determine whether their study section is a good fit with your grant.

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/peer/peer.htm

(2) Contact your program office (PO) to determine if their institute is a good fit with your grant. The PO can identify relevant program announcements (PAs) and requests for applications (RFAs). Your PO can also determine which type of funding mechanism is the best fit for your proposal (e.g., RO1 vs R21 vs RO3). A PO works with you on strategy.

(3) Key words in your abstract will help the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) assign your application to an institute and study section.

Electronic Submission:

http://era.nih.gov/electronicReceipt

https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons Institution needs to register on Grants.gov.

You must download PureEdge to your computer.

http://grants.gov/GetStarted download the grant application package. Complete teh applicaiton and return to your signing office (SO). The institution submits the applicaiton through the SO to Grants.gove. Track the status of the applicaiton at Grants.gov until you are notified via email by Grants.gov that the NIH has received it.

After you submit:

(1) contact your SRA who is running your review to review schedules and procedures and submission of supplemental preliminary data.

You submit an application and obtain supplemental data later. Put the supplemental information into your grant. The SRA sets dates for supplemental information.

You submit an application. 2 months later a paper comes out supporting what you do. You should send in a supplemental reply.

Your PO can review summary statements, help with revision, your score and/or percentile (eRA-Commons).

How a Grant is Reviewed

A grant goes to CSR, is then assigned to a review graoup & institute, assigned to a PO and to a SRA, then study section, then reviewers.

Eventually goes to NIAID Council who gives final approval or not.

After you are Funded

Grants Management Official negotiates and awards all grants, provides fiscal administration of grants.