Notice Number: NOT-GM-13-102
Key Dates
Release Date: February 22, 2013
PAR-12-205
Issued by
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Purpose
The "Evaluation Plan and Milestones" described in Part 2, Section I of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) is modified. A new paragraph (bolded second paragraph,) is added into Evaluation Plan and Milestones section as following:
Evaluation Plan and Milestones:
An evaluation component is to be included in the application to assess whether the effectiveness of the approach taken will meet the goals or benchmarks for building an effective institutional and statewide scientific network. The application is to describe the development and implementation of the plan for formative and summative evaluations of the network along with strategies for implementing required network modifications, if deemed necessary. In addition, the evaluation plan is to set benchmarks for the network's impact on recruitment and retention of outstanding faculty and students at participating undergraduate and graduate institutions, community colleges and minority serving institutions. There may be other elements that the applicant may choose to include in the evaluation plan, such as quality and number of students, productivity of the mentors and investigators, and impact on state's biotechnology industry, economy and workforce.
All the Networks must have an independent, external evaluation in addition to the monitoring and formative evaluation process provided internally and by the External Advisory Committee. Funds for the external evaluation, up to 2% of the total direct costs, if appropriately justified, may be requested in the Administrative Core budget. As a part of the evaluation process, students who are receiving biomedical research experiences and training should be tracked, for example total number of students who had research experiences, have gone to graduate and professional schools, or have entered the workforce.
One of the objectives of INBRE is to provide undergraduate faculty and students research support and serve as a pipeline for undergraduate students to continue in health research careers. The mission of most primarily undergraduate institutions and liberal arts colleges is teaching and in some cases teaching and research to provide students experiences and exposure to research. The intent of INBRE is not to transform liberal arts primarily undergraduate institutions into biomedical research centers but rather to augment the science curriculum. Obtaining R01 support by investigators at these institutions is not expected and is not a criterion for evaluation. However, these investigators may seek and obtain research support via mechanisms such as Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) and NIMHD Building Research Infrastructure and Capacity (BRIC) (previously known as the NIMHD Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions (RIMI) program) grants. However, at the lead institutions, investigators may apply for and obtain R01 and Program Project grant support and in some cases faculty at the primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) may participate as investigators in these Program Project grants.
INBREs that include minority serving institutions as partners are encouraged to develop activities that focus on enhancing the quality of instruction and providing research experiences relevant to students and their communities. This may include activities that focus on incorporating new courses in science curricula, and involving their students in research projects that are linked to reducing health disparities and developing interventions to improve the health status of their communities.
The success of PUI, community colleges and TCU researchers may be measured by attainable metrics that are appropriate to the missions of their institutions. Criteria for evaluating the progress of these researchers may include evidence of scholarly activities including publications, offering of new courses and programs, providing research experiences to students, impact on the community, attending and presenting research findings at scientific meetings and conferences, submission of external grant applications to NIH and other Federal and non-Federal agencies, and acquisition of awards such as AREA (R15), exploratory/pilot project grants (R03 and R21), career development awards (K01 and K08) or other Federal or non-Federal Agency awards.
Inquiries
Please direct all inquiries to:
Yanping Liu, MD., PhD.
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
National Institutes of Health
45 Center Drive, Room 2As.37A,
Bethesda, MD 20892-6200
Telephone: (301) 451-4217
Email: [email protected]
and Human Services (HHS)
