Key Dates

Related Announcements

NOT-OD-21-122: Guidance for Applicants Preparing Applications for the Fall 2020 Due Dates During the COVID-19 Pandemic

NOT-OD-20-086: Flexibilities Available to Applicants and Recipients of Federal Financial Assistance Affected by COVID-19

NOT-OD-21-180: Clarification and Guidance for Applicants Preparing Applications for the Fall 2021 Due Dates During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Issued by

Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health (OD)

Purpose

The NIH is committed to supporting the biomedical research enterprise as the nation implements the President's Guidelines for Re-Opening America Again. The purpose of this Notice is to extend the guidance below for applicants preparing applications during the COVID-19 pandemic (NOT-OD-21-122) until further notice.

NIH grant applications should NOT include contingency plans that would outline steps needed to recover from temporary, emergency situations, or institutional return-to-the-workplace plans, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Contingency plans will not be considered in peer review but, if needed, COVID-19 contingency plans will be requested and carefully considered by NIH staff before funding.

Reviewers will continue to receive instruction to assume that temporary, emergency problems arising from the COVID-19 pandemic will be resolved and complications related to COVID-19 should not affect their scores. Reviewers will be instructed to disregard situations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, e.g., temporary declines in productivity, availability of key personnel, proposed patient populations, animal facility shutdowns, etc.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Sally A. Amero, Ph.D.
NIH Review Policy Officer
ReviewPolicyOfficer@mail.nih.gov