News Flashes

January 30, 2012
The 2012 NIH Regional Seminars on Program Funding and Grants Administration will be held in Indianapolis, IN (April 16-18) and Washington, DC (June 20-22).  Registration is OPEN for the first seminar in Indianapolis, while the D.C. registration is expected to open in mid-February. Register early to take advantage of reduced rates for the seminar and the hotel.  Held only twice each year, participants at an NIH Regional Seminar experience an unparalleled opportunity to gain a better perspective of NIH policies and programs, network with peers, gather helpful NIH contacts, and to return to the office or lab with inside information, resources, and tools to assist in obtaining and managing NIH awards. For more information, see NOT-OD-12-040.

December 14, 2011
On Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) offered a live webinar titled, What NIH Grantees Need to Know About the 2011 Revised Financial Conflict of Interest Regulation.  Investigators and administrators are encouraged to watch the newly posted archive of this event and view the PPT slides on the topic of the 2011 Revised Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) regulation (42 CFR Part 50 Subpart F, Responsibility of Applicants for Promoting  Objectivity in Research for Which PHS Funding is Sought). This webinar, sponsored by the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER), focused on requirements as they relate to NIH-funded grants and cooperative agreements

Links to the archive and slides are available on OER’s Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) Page.

November 30, 2011
What NIH Grantees Need to Know About the 2011 Revised Financial Conflict of Interest Regulation
Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 2:00-3:30pm EST

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) encourages both investigators and administrators to join NIH staff for a webinar on the 2011 Revised Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) regulation (42 CFR Part 50 Subpart F, Responsibility of Applicants for Promoting  Objectivity in Research for Which PHS Funding is Sought).   This webinar, sponsored by the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER), will focus on requirements as they relate to NIH-funded grants and cooperative agreements.

No registration is required. 

October 17, 2011
Verify active Central Contractor Registration (CCR) well before your submission deadline. CCR must be renewed yearly. Since August 2011, Grants.gov has been rejecting applications from organizations that do not have a current CCR registration.

Check CCR Registration Status by visiting http://www.bpn.gov/CCRSearch/Search.aspx and searching using your organization’s DUNS.  Some CCR-registered users may choose not to display their information in the public search. If your information is not available publicly, your organization’s e-Biz Point of Contact must determine current status.

October 3, 2011
Apply now through November 15 for the National Institutes of Health’s Loan Repayment Programs. The LRPs help repay the outstanding student loans of researchers who are or will be conducting nonprofit biomedical or behavioral research, and opportunities are available in five research areas – clinical, pediatric, health disparities, contraception and infertility and clinical research for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. Learn more and apply at http://www.lrp.nih.gov

August 29, 2011
Now is the time to apply for an NIH Director's Pioneer Award or New Innovator Award. The deadline for submitting Pioneer Award applications is October 7, 2011, and October 14, 2011 for the New Innovator Award applications. See the websites for more information http://commonfund.nih.gov/pioneer and http://commonfund.nih.gov/newinnovator.

August 23, 2011
The Department of Health and Human Services is issuing a final rule in the Federal Register revising the regulations on financial conflicts of interest of extramural investigators. For a look at what’s different, check out the side-by-side comparison table on the Financial Conflict of Interest website and read Dr. Rockey’s blog post on the topic.

August 19, 2011
We have posted the de-indentified data set used in the recent analysis, Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Funding (PDF - 200 KB) .

August 18, 2011
Read Dr. Rockey’s blog post on the study published today in Science. The study reveals that black or African American applicants were significantly less likely to receive NIH R01 funding than were white applicants (during 2000-2006). The gap in success rates amounted to 10 percentage points even after controlling for a series of factors that might affect success.

August 12, 2011
NIH’s Common Fund (http://commonfund.nih.gov) supports exceptionally innovative programs that are inherently high-risk but have the potential for high payoff by catalyzing research across all of NIH and in the biomedical research community. New ideas for Common Fund programs are identified annually by internal and external scientists and stakeholders. We are now asking your input on these ideas to help us shape new programs for 2013. Provide your input today at http://commonfund.nih.gov/strategicplanning. The feedback period is open until Wednesday, September 14, 2011.

August 10, 2011
The NIH SBIR Program recently announced the following 2 specialty programs of interest to small businesses:

Niche Assessment Program:  This program is designed to help NIH’s SBIR Phase I awardees “jump-start” their company’s commercialization efforts.  Awardees must have been funded in fiscal years (FY) 2011 and 2012.  For more information on the Phase I SBIR Niche Assessment Program, see NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-11-94  

August 10, 2011
The NIH will not review a resubmission application (A1 version) if an appeal of the initial peer review is pending on the original application (A0 version).  This policy is effective for A0 applications submitted for the May 25, 2011 due date and thereafter.  These applications will be reviewed in the fall of 2011 for the January 2012 Council round.  Resolution of an appeal occurs when the initial peer review outcome is finalized, by issuance of the final overall impact score and summary statement.  For more information, see NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-11-101.

August 10, 2011
Effective October 1, 2011, NIH will require grantees to use the No-Cost Extension feature in the eRA Commons to notify NIH when they exercise their one-time authority to extend the final budget period of a grant, without requesting additional funds.  NIH will no longer accept these notifications via other communication channels.  Grantees have a one-time authority to extend the final budget period of a previously approved project period for up to 12 months.   Grantees are reminded that all such notifications must be submitted through the Commons before the project period expires.   For more information see NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-11-098.

July 15, 2011
Who is reviewing your NIH grant application and how were they selected?  Don’t miss the most recent podcast from the NIH Office of Extramural (OER) on Selecting Study Section Reviewers. The OER podcast series provides guidance and insight from NIH experts on a variety of grant topics of interest to investigators, fellows, students, and research administrators.

July 15, 2011
Dr. Sally J. Rockey, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research, recently posted her comments on why the time is right for the proposed National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Her blog follows in the footsteps of a recent article published by Dr. Francis Collins, NIH Director, in Science Translational Medicine that outlines the goals, functions, and structure of the proposed new center. For more information on this topic and previous postings by Dr. Rockey, check out her blog.

July 15, 2011
Are you responsible for your institution's animal care program, a new or seasoned IACUC member, or an IACUC affiliate? If so, consider this one day workshop on IACUC fundamentals in Des Moines, Iowa on August 11, 2011. Attendees will receive a basic, yet comprehensive overview of the laws, regulations, and policies that govern the humane care and use of research animals. This interactive workshop provides attendees the opportunity to practice what they have learned when they are challenged to consider, deliberate, and develop action plans for a variety of potential IACUC scenarios. For more information and a link to registration details, see NIH Guide notice NOT-OD-11-092.

Current News Flashes:   2011

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