Key Dates

Related Announcements

• April 4, 2024 - Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Administrative Supplements for Assessing and Enhancing Survivorship Care. See NOT-CA-24-041.

• April 5, 2024 - Notice of Expiration: NOT-CA-24-035, Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Administrative Supplements for Assessing and Enhancing Survivorship Care. See Notice NOT-CA-24-042.
• October 9, 2020 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional). See NOFO PA-20-272.

Issued by

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Purpose

The Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announces this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to encourage current grant or cooperative agreement awardees to apply for administrative supplement funds to support research with an overall goal of examining and improving survivorship care to align with recently developed national survivorship standards.

Background

Definitions for the purpose of this NOSI:

• Cancer survivor: Any individual from the time of a cancer diagnosis through the balance of life
• Health system policy: principles and procedures guiding an organization’s capacity and structure to provide survivorship care
• Health system process:  an organization’s capacity to deliver survivorship care through its embedded practices and procedures
• Health system assessment/evaluation: how to measure the impacts of survivorship care within an organization

Currently, there are over 18 million cancer survivors in the United States (US). This number is expected to continue to increase, as more people are living longer after diagnosis. Care needs for cancer survivors persist beyond primary treatment and include management or prevention of side effects, detection of recurrence or new cancers, and support for healthy behaviors (such as tobacco control and physical activity). As a result, survivors need risk-informed, coordinated, and often multidisciplinary long-term follow-up care. However, approaches to cancer survivorship care vary widely across the US.

Despite the existence of recommendations and long-term follow-up guidelines for some cancers, the lack of a national standard for cancer survivorship care has impeded advancements in research and clinical care, most notably with regard to ensuring equitable care, measuring care quality, and supporting reimbursement for components of care received. Recently, as part of the Biden Cancer Moonshot, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Veterans Affairs (VA) developed the National Standards for Survivorship Care (https://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/ocs/special-focus-areas/developing-national-cancer-survivorship-standards). These standards define the (1) essential health system policy and process components of survivorship care programs; and (2) outcomes to evaluate the quality of survivorship care. The process to develop these standards included a landscape review of relevant guidelines, literature, quality frameworks, and prior work outside the US, as well as national consensus meetings of subject-matter experts to prioritize indicators. 

The short-term goal of the supplemental funding is to support research to better define and improve survivorship care that is accessible by survivors using the national survivorship standards as a framework.

Research Objectives

The research objective of this supplement notice is to examine the extent to which survivorship care or programs align with recently developed National Standards for Survivorship Care. The ultimate goal is to better understand the existing landscape of care and how to achieve effective survivorship care.  Supplements may support quantitative or mixed methods research.

Investigators should request supplement support to utilize the national survivorship standards to do the following:

• Assess alignment of the standards with existing survivorship program within the healthcare system or cancer center
• Evaluate the extent to which the survivorship program is available and utilized by survivors (e.g., availability, affordability, accessibility, accommodation, and acceptability)
• Identify barriers and facilitators to accessing survivorship care
• Identify gap areas for future development

Non-responsive Applications

Applications not responsive to this NOSI include those that:

• Propose work that is included in the original funded recruitment plans;
• Include a plan that is not reasonable for the proposed project to be completed, given the time and budget requested;

All applicants are encouraged to discuss their applications with the scientific/research contact listed in this NOSI (below) prior to submission.

Application and Submission Information

Applications for this initiative must be submitted using the following opportunity or its subsequent reissued equivalent.

• PA-20-272 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and PA-20-272 must be followed, with the following additions:

Eligibility.

• Only current awardees of an active NCI-funded R01, R37, R00, P01, P30, U01, UM1, UH3, or U19 are eligible to apply.
• PDs/PIs must hold an active award supported through NCI with sufficient time (minimum 1 year) left to complete the proposed project after the supplement has been awarded within the existing project period.
• The proposed project must be within the scope of the parent award.  
• Requests for no-cost extensions on the parent grant to accommodate a supplement will not be permitted.
• If an applicant anticipates a balance of 25% or more of the current total costs for the parent grant, please contact the scientific research contact prior to submitting an application.
• Only one supplement application per parent award will be accepted for consideration. For supplements to parent awards that include multiple PDs/PIs, the supplement may be requested by any or all of the PDs/PIs (in accordance with the existing leadership plan) and submitted by the awardee institution of the parent award.

Budget.

• The budget should not exceed $100,000 in total costs for the entire allowable 1-year project period of the application/award.
• The administrative supplement application budget is limited to 1 year only.
• Administrative supplements may only be used to meet increased costs that are within the scope of the approved award, but were unforeseen when the new or renewal application or grant progress report for non-competing continuation support was submitted; supplements designed to meet cost increases for unanticipated expenses within the original scope of the project will not be considered.

Submitting Applications.

• Application Due Date: Submissions must be received by June 4, 2024, at 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization for FY 2024 funding. The NOSI will expire April 5, 2024.
• For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-CA-24-032" (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.
• Applicants should begin the supplement application abstract by stating “This application is being submitted in response to the Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) identified as "NOT-CA-24-032".
• In order to facilitate efficient processing of the request, applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the assigned NCI Program Official for the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this NOSI.

Page Limits:

The application must include the following sections and adhere to the following limits:

• Project Summary/Abstract: 30 lines of text
• Project Narrative: 3 sentences
• Research Strategy: 5 pages. 
• Biographical Sketch: for Senior/Key Personnel and Significant Contributors only

Review and Selection Process

NCI will conduct administrative reviews of applications and will support the most meritorious applications submitted for consideration, based upon availability of funds. Additionally, NCI program staff will evaluate applications using the following selection factors:

• Does the administrative supplement reasonably allow for the proposed project to be completed, given the time and budget requested?
• Are the proposed activities relevant to the parent grant and original work scope?
• Does the applicant demonstrate satisfactory progress towards achieving the aims of the parent grant, as appropriate to the current stage of the project?
• Does the proposed project for supplemental funding fill an identified gap in the scientific literature that advances cancer survivorship research?

Applicants are encouraged to discuss their application with the scientific/research contacts listed in this NOSI prior to submission.

Applications nonresponsive to the terms of this NOSI will not be considered for funding.

The process for Streamlined Submissions using the eRA Commons cannot be used for this initiative.

Inquiries

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Michelle Mollica, PhD, MPH, RN, OCN
National Cancer Institute
Telephone: 240-276-7621
Email: michelle.mollica@nih.gov

Financial/Grants Management Contact(s)

Crystal Wolfrey
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Telephone: 240-276-6277
Email: crystal.wolfrey@nih.gov