This Notice of Special Interest informs current awardees that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is providing the opportunity for supplemental funding to facilitate collaboration, preparation, harmonization, pooling and analyses of data collected for steering committee approved scientific projects within the NCI Cohort Consortium. Through these administrative supplements, the NCI seeks to enhance the rapid completion of projects, data access, and data sharing.

This Notice also informs current NCI awardees that NCI intends to provide administrative supplements to investigators with at least one steering committee approved NCI Cohort Consortium project. Preference will be given to projects led by an early stage investigator (ESI), as well as those that address a research gap.

These supplements will achieve the following:

• Support completion of NCI Cohort Consortium steering committee approved projects
• Enhance data sharing
• Support early stage investigators
• Foster collaborative research to address important areas using data from cancer cohort studies

Background:

The mission of the NCI Cohort Consortium is to foster communication among investigators leading cohort studies of cancer, promote collaborative research projects for topics not easily addressed in a single study, and identify and address common challenges in cohort research. This supplement will promote research conducted through the NCI Cohort Consortium, provide momentum for the completion of ongoing research to advance the mission of the NCI Cohort Consortium. The bulk of the research in the NCI Cohort Consortium emanates from the steering committee approved projects and scientific working groups. Typically, these projects and working groups involve groups of scientists from multiple institutions who have agreed to pool data from their individual cohort studies for combined analyses, to address research questions that cannot be answered in a single study. The 48 steering-committee approved projects are in various stages of development, data aggregation, and analyses. The purpose of the supplements is to facilitate the completion of the studies which are often delayed due to lack of resources. In line with the NCI Cohort Consortium’s strategic plan (2018-2021), the supplements will enhance data aggregation, analysis, and data sharing. Successful applicants are required to share de-identified data derived from their projects and the harmonized datasets among consortium members through the NCI designated central data coordinating center. Successful applicants are also required to share their aggregate results, analysis parameters, harmonized phenotypes and variables through submission to NCI designated data repositories and/or dbGaP.

Eligibility

• Administrative supplement applications are limited to currently funded projects supported by NCI.
• PDs/PIs must hold an active eligible R01, R37, P01, U19, U01, or UM1 grant supported through NCI - no other grant mechanisms are eligible for this program.
• Only individual(s) with an approved NCI Cohort Consortium project or that collaborate with an investigator of an approved NCI Cohort Consortium project may submit an administrative supplement application.
• 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.

Application and Submission Information

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

• PA-18-591 - 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-18-591 must be followed, with the following additions:

• Application Due Date: Submissions must be received by May 15, 2020 at 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization for FY 2020 funding.
• For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-CA-20-030” (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-20-030.”

• Budget and Period of Support:

  • The budget should not exceed $250,000 in total costs.
  • At least one full year on the parent grant must remain at the time of funding. The application budget is limited to one year only. Funds from this supplement must be expended within 12 months of the supplement award issue date.
  • Requests for no-cost extensions on the parent grant to accommodate a supplement will not be permitted.
  • Funds from this supplement may be used to cover costs associated with completing existing steering committee approved consortium projects, including, but not limited to data collection, data preparation, data harmonization, analyses, and publication costs, and travel to investigator meetings that facilitate collaborations on the consortium project during the supplement period. Salary support for the PI(s) and collaborators is not permitted.
• The Research Strategy must not exceed 2 pages and summarize the activities of the parent grant that encompass those proposed in the supplemental request and describe how those activities are proposed for augmentation and/or enhancement in the supplemental request by describing:
  • The supplement's purpose;
  • The relationship of the supplement request to the parent grant;
  • Applicants should include the consortium approved project title, date approved by the steering committee and project contacts, and clearly document the contributions of each of the participating collaborative units and individual researchers; and
  • The additional value provided to the underlying funded research (parent grant) of the PI and the collaborating investigators.
• NCI requires applicants to submit electronically through Grants.gov. All applications (including those for multi-project activity codes) must be submitted electronically using a single-project application form package with the Competition ID of “FORMS-E-ADMINSUPP-RESEARCH”
• The process for Streamlined Submissions using the eRA Commons cannot be used for this initiative.

Administrative Review Process:

NCI will conduct administrative reviews of applications submitted to their IC and will support the most meritorious applications submitted for consideration, based upon the availability of funds.

Criteria:

1. Does the administrative supplement reasonably allow for the proposed project to be completed, given the time and budget requested?
2. Does the work in the administrative supplement fill an identified gap in the scientific literature?
3. Will the proposed work be a valuable data resource that is accessible to a broad scientific community?
4. Will the administrative supplement increase the likelihood that data generated from the proposed work will be shared in the centralized coordinating center for broad use by consortium members?

Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the program contact at the Institute supporting the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this NOSI to facilitate efficient processing of the application.

Applications nonresponsive to the terms and conditions will be not be considered for this NOSI initiative.