Background
NIH recently published NOT-OD-21-052 which provided general guidance for early career scientists who have been significantly affected by COVID-19 to request funded extensions. The purpose of this Notice is to clarify eligibility and application details for NIDA grantees who apply for supplements due to COVID-19 related delays. NIDA grantees who are considering applying for an extension are strongly encouraged to reach out to their Program Officer prior to beginning their application.
Eligibility and Extension Criteria
To apply for a extension, you must be a currently funded NIDA F30, F31, F32, K99, K01, K08, K23, or K25 awardee whose grant is in its final year. The proposed budgets for funded extensions must be within the scope of the parent grant, and cannot exceed 12 months. Career Development Award recipients who have successfully competed as a PD/PI for a research project grant (RPG) with direct costs of ≥ $100,000 per year are not eligible for this extension.
Program Priorities
Due to limited funding, NIDA will not be able to provide support for all requests. In concert with the NIH priorities, NIDA aims to prioritize supplement requests in the following order:
- Projects where the entire investment is at-risk including:
- Human subjects studies in which completion of data collection are critical for project success
- Longitudinal cohort studies
- PIs who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic beyond the universally experienced disruptions
- PIs whose grants are ending and the PI does not have any additional funding to support continued research
Application and Submission Information
Applicants affected by COVID-19 seeking funded extensions must apply using the following opportunity announcement:
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:
- Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. To be considered for funding during Fiscal Year 2021, applications must be submitted no later than midnight May 31, 2021.
- Applicants must include "NOT-OD-21-052" 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 funded extension opportunity.
- Letter from Applicant
- Submit an official letter on university letterhead signed by your institutional business official, addressed to your NIDA Grants Specialist, and copied to your NIDA Program Officer (PO)
- Justify the need for an extension and the amount of time requested. If institutional, laboratory, or performance site closures are involved, provide start and end dates for the closures and describe the circumstances. If loss of animals, reagents, or supplies are involved, provide details. If data or samples were lost, or if data collection was interrupted, describe the details of the circumstances. If additional tuition funds beyond those previously allotted are required, explain why. If there are personal circumstances that led to hardships, provide details. Be certain to address how training and career development activities were severely hindered over and above lost research productivity that most individuals experienced because of COVID-19 shutdowns.Describe progress since the last RPPR submission. Include progress toward completing specific aims, publications (in preparation, submitted, and accepted), presentations, and courses and training.
- Describe frequency of meetings with mentors, colleagues and consultants. Provide other evidence of productivity related to the goals of the award if desired.
- Describe proposed activities and timeline for the extension period. To provide additional context, awardee may include plans for time leading up to the extension period. Awardee should describe activities and milestones. This should include plans for completing laboratory studies, data collection, data analysis, additional coursework/training, conference attendance, manuscript preparation, dissertation defense (if applicable), planning for future grant submissions and other career development activities to advance awardee to next phase of their career.
- Letter from Mentor
- A mentor letter that provides details regarding the extenuating circumstances that necessitate this extension is required. The letter should also provide the primary mentor’s assessment of trainee/awardee progress to date.
Evaluation Process
- Administrative supplement applications will be evaluated by internal programmatic and administrative staff on the status of the research, progress toward the specific aims of the grant, demonstrated need for the supplement, and the program priorities listed above.
- Applications nonresponsive to terms of this NOSI will not be considered high priority for the NOSI initiative.
- In addition to the criteria listed above, support for supplements will also be based on the availability of funds.
