Key Dates

Related Announcements

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

NOT-CA-21-010 - Pre-Application Webinar for NOT-CA-21-008, Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Availability of Administrative Supplements to Adapt/Repackage Visualization Methods for Enhancing Cancer Moonshot Data

Issued by

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Purpose

Through funds available from the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, and pursuant to the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI s) interest in advancing data visualization tools and methods for cancer research, applications are invited, through PA-20-272 in conjunction with this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI), for one-year administrative supplements to support the adaptation and repackaging of existing broad-based visualization methods that have the potential to make Cancer Moonshot-aligned data more explorable and interpretable by the broader cancer research community.

Research Objectives

Cancer researchers use and generate large amounts of complex data. While effective data visualization is an important step for the analysis, interpretation, and communication of cancer research data, many existing visualization methods are inaccessible to cancer researchers or are otherwise difficult to use for cancer research. For instance, visualization methods are often contained within larger software packages that are not commonly used by cancer researchers. This NOSI will support requests from applicants with currently active NCI grants and cooperative agreements for administrative supplements to repackage existing data visualization software as modular, easily adoptable software packages and libraries that cancer researchers, informaticists, and data scientists can readily incorporate into their own cancer data analysis workflows and software tools. The existing software to be repackaged is not required to have been originally developed under the parent award, however the new availability and utility of the repackaged data visualization software method should enhance the goals of the parent award.

Responsiveness

Applicants submitting administrative supplement requests in response to this NOSI must:

1. Identify an existing data visualization method that is currently unavailable to cancer researchers or is difficult to use for cancer research;

2. Identify one or more Cancer Moonshot-relevant use-cases for the chosen visualization method and describe how adoption of the method could enhance the use of Cancer Moonshot data; and
3. Describe any additional software engineering, porting, or minor enhancements of the visualization method that will be performed during the process of repackaging the software as a modular, stand-alone software package or library.

NOTE: Applications that request support for de novo development of data visualization software, or that request support solely for the use of an existing software tool, or that do not include a software repackaging component will not be reviewed. Applicants interested in the NCI’s support for the de novo development of data visualization software methods, algorithms, and tools may be responsive to FOAs associated with the Informatics Technologies for Cancer Research (ITCR) program.

Investigators are encouraged to discuss their application with the scientific/research contact listed in this notice 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:

Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the NCI program contact (David Miller, Ph.D.) via email (david.miller3@nih.gov) that a request has been submitted in response to this NOSI in order to facilitate efficient processing of the request.

Eligibility and Eligible Individuals (Program Director/Principal Investigator): Applicant(s) must hold an active grant or cooperative agreement from the NCI. For supplements to parent awards that include multiple program directors/principal investigators (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. If the PD/PI of the supplement application is not the PD/PI of the parent award, a letter of support from the contact PI of the parent award must be provided. The project period for the parent award must be active, and cannot be in a no-cost extension, for the 1 year of this administrative supplement project.

NOTE: There is no requirement for the parent award to have been supported via any existing or prior Cancer Moonshot funding opportunity.

Application Due Date: Applications will be accepted starting December 2, 2020, at 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization. Applications can be submitted on a rolling basis for possible funding in FY2021, FY2022, and FY2023. This NOSI will expire on November 3, 2022. However, continuation of this NOSI is contingent upon availability of funds, and the NOSI may be terminated before the current expiration date. Please note that the current parent administrative supplement funding opportunity that this NOSI relates to (PA-20-272) expires on January 26, 2021. However, this NOSI will relate to the reissue of the parent supplement funding opportunity after January 26, 2021, until November 3, 2022.

Budget: Supplement budget requests cannot exceed $100,000 in direct costs exclusive of Facilities and Administrative costs on sub-awards, and the budget cannot exceed the direct costs of the current parent award. Requests must reflect the actual needs of the proposed project. Administrative supplements can be used to cover cost increases that are associated with achieving certain new research objectives as long as the research objectives are within the original scope of the peer-reviewed and approved project, or the cost increases are for unanticipated expenses within the original scope of the project. Requests are permitted for 1 year of support only. Modular and categorical budgets are permitted. The earliest anticipated start date is December 1, 2020.

Submitting Applications

• For administrative supplement to grants and cooperative agreements, supplement requests must be submitted in accordance with the parent program announcement PA-20-272. NOTE: Administrative supplement requests (applications) for support of clinical trials will not be accepted and/or considered in response to this NOSI.
• Applicants must 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-21-008.
• Supplement requests should be submitted electronically if allowed by the parent mechanism.
• Page Limits: The Research Strategy should not exceed 5 pages, not including the abstract.
• Software Dissemination Plan: A software dissemination plan, with appropriate timelines, is expected to be included in the application. There is no prescribed single license for software produced through grants responding to this announcement. However, NCI does have goals for software dissemination and the plan should address the following:
  • The software should be freely available to biomedical researchers and educators in the non-profit sector, such as institutions of education, research institutions, and government laboratories.
  • The terms of software availability should permit the dissemination and commercialization of enhanced or customized versions of the software, or incorporation of the software or pieces of it into other software packages.
  • To preserve utility to the community, the software should be transferable such that another individual or team can continue development in the event that the original investigators are unwilling or unable to do so.
  • The terms of software availability should include the ability of researchers to modify the source code and to share modifications with other colleagues.
  • To further enhance the potential impact of their software, applicants may consider proposing a plan to manage and disseminate the improvements or customizations of their tools and resources by others. In support of this goal, awardees are encouraged to manage and disseminate their source code through an open revision control and source code management system such as GitHub.
  • To ensure software discoverability, the NCI intends to curate a GitHub collection or other repository collection of the software packages supported via this NOSI.
• Resource Sharing Plan: Individuals are required to comply with the instructions for the Resource Sharing Plans as provided in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, with the following modification:

• All applications, regardless of the amount of direct costs requested for any one year, should address a Data Sharing Plan.
• Addressing the Cancer Moonshot Public Access Pilot Program: Utilizing the provision outlined in the 21st Century Cures Act, NCI has established a data sharing policy for projects that are funded as part of the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative that requires applicants to submit a Public Access and Data Sharing Plan that: (1) describes their proposed process for making resulting Publications and to the extent possible, the Underlying Primary Data immediately and broadly available to the public and; (2) if applicable, provides a justification to NCI if such sharing is not possible. NCI will give competitive preference and funding priority to applications with a data sharing plan that complies with the strategy described here. The data sharing plan will become a term and condition of award.

NOTE: For funding consideration, applicants must include NOT-CA-21-008 (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 administrative supplement opportunity.

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, Program staff will evaluate applications using the following selection factors:

Critical Considerations:

1. Is the work proposed within the scope of the active award?
2. Is the work proposed comprised of the repackaging and/or adaptation of an existing data visualization method(s) that is not currently used within the broader cancer research community?
3. Does the identified data visualization method and example use-case(s) hold scientific merit for enhancing the use of Cancer Moonshot-aligned data by the broader cancer research community?
4. Is the submitted software dissemination plan acceptable?

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

David Miller, Ph.D.
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Telephone: 240-276-6810
Email: david.miller3@nih.gov