University of California, San Francisco
Stimulus

NIH ARRA Rumors

The information on this page is rumor only.  Please contact your NIH program officer to verify anything that is important to your particular situation.  If you have additional information about any of these rumors or new ones to share, please email StimulusTeam@ucsf.edu

Supplements

While many institute websites imply the limit on administrative supplements is $100K, this is often just a guideline or likely scenario.  You are strongly encouraged to contact your program officer to discuss the plans and budget for an administrative supplement request.

Previously Submitted R01s and Other Applications

•    The institutes and centers are working on previously submitted R01s on a case-by-case basis.  They are first making decisions about R01s funded through regular appropriations. Then they are identifying the grants that are consistent with the goals of the stimulus and are beginning to notify PIs about feasibility of converting to two-year awards. 
•    Based on discussions with PIs and eligibility, some individuals may get NIH Director Bridge Awards (i.e. one year, non-stimulus $s) instead of two-year awards. 
•    The institutes will be funding other grants beyond the payline – specifically R21s, R03s and R15s.
•    ARRA money is for two years - no exceptions. Institutes may decide to use ARRA money for the first two years of an award and IC appropriation for outyears.  While this is permissible, it causes issues with encumbering funds in the outyears.

New Investigator Status

•    New investigators should keep these facts in mind:

  • If you do receive a two-year grant, you will lose your new status, including if you are one of multiple PIs.
  • On the other hand, if you apply for a standard (non-ARRA) R01, you can benefit from the high R01 payline for new investigators, and if successful, get a four- or five-year award. This is the route NIAID recommends.

Challenge Grants

•    The institutes can put funding in addition to that provided by the Office of the Director into Challenge Grant proposals that are meritorious and within their mission.  The amount and focus will vary from institute to institute.

New! Guidance from NIAID about what to do if your Challenge Grant does not get funded:

  • Under NIH policy, you can submit your Challenge Grant application again if you follow procedures for a new application:
    • Check the "New" box on the face page.
    • Do not include a progress report or introduction.
    • Do not highlight reviewer comments in the research plan.
  • Pick a new funding opportunity announcement (you cannot use the Challenge Grant announcement) and modify the application to meet its requirements.
  • Revise your research plan to suit a four- to five-year award, rather than the two-year grant you originally applied for.
  • Use the reviewers' feedback to improve the application (but do not note them in the text since you are submitting a new application).
  • Do not apply until you receive your summary statement.

Normally you cannot resubmit the same unfunded application. However, NIH allows you do this in two situations, according to the May 15, 2009, Guide notice:

  • Submitting the application as another grant type, for example, changing from RC1 to R01 or R21.
  • Submitting an investigator-initiated application after responding unsuccessfully to a request for applications (and vice versa) regardless of grant type.

Not sure about the difference between an investigator-initiated application and applying through a request for applications? Read Application Approach: What Are Your Choices?

You can read more about when NIH allows you to resubmit the same application at Which types of unfunded applications may I reuse, and how do I proceed? in the General Application Information questions and answers.

Potential new funding mechanisms

•    There may be an RFA for projects that can be used as examples of exciting progress for Congress in 2011.
•    There is discussion of funding mechanisms that use ARRA dollars to "push projects over the finish line" that will make an identifiable splash.

Mixing Funds

NIH has decided that we cannot fund applications responding to ARRA funding announcements, including administrative supplements, with money from our regular appropriation due to differences in reporting requirements, peer review, and technical issues.

While we also cannot mingle ARRA and non-ARRA funds in the same grant, we can pay grants with ARRA funds initially and use money from our regular appropriation for later years. See  Two Types of Funding in Don't Confuse Stimulus Money With Our FY 2009 Budget on our NIAID and the Economic Recovery Act site.

General Strategy

•    One way to get around the two-year limit of ARRA funding is to write RO1's that can be funded with 2010 regular budget dollars.  The odds of getting funded in 2010 should be improved because the pipeline of resubmissions will be completely dry.   The strategy would be to get funded for the long term in the good year of 2010 before the anticipated drought in 2011 begins.
•    Jeremy Berg is quoted in the NIGMS newsletter Feedback Loop: “While we have not determined how much of the NIGMS Recovery Act funds will be used to support such two-year grants, the following calculation provides a sense of scale. If we were to use all of the Recovery Act funds for this purpose and we assume an average total cost per grant of $340,000, this corresponds to 746 grants. For comparison, we expect to fund approximately 900 new and competing grants in fiscal year 2009 through our regular appropriation.”
•    NIAID Newsletter states that “Keep in mind that, if you're in line for ARRA funding, we may skip you if you don't respond in time.”