NIDCD is issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to highlight the urgent need for research on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in relation to NIDCD’s scientific mission areas of hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech and language.

Research Objectives

In order to rapidly improve our understanding of the infection of SARS-CoV-2 and of COVID-19, NIDCD is encouraging the submission of applications for supplements to active NIDCD grants to address the pathology, prevention, diagnosis, sequelae, or treatment of COVID-19 directly related to NIDCD’s mission areas.

Applications are expected to focus on immediate needs to help address the COVID-19 pandemic in a timely manner. Applications that are not responsive will be withdrawn without review.

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)
• PA-18-935 Urgent Competitive Revision to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Urgent Supplement - Clinical Trial Optional)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and the appropriate PA must be followed, with the following additions:

The definition of scope can be found in the NIH Grants Policy Statement. NIDCD anticipates that most applications in response to this NOSI will be expanding the scope of the parent award and will be submitted in response to PA-18-935.

Only R01 and U01 activity codes of currently funded NIDCD grants are eligible to apply to this NOSI. The funding instrument, or activity code, will be the same as the parent award.

When developing applications in response to this NOSI, all instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and the appropriate PA must be followed, with the following additions:

• The Research Strategy section of the application is limited to 6 pages.
• The project period of the supplement must not exceed one year.
• Application budgets cannot exceed $125,000 direct costs. Exceptions to this budget limit may be made with NIDCD pre-approval and will only be approved under the very rare circumstances where the work may immediately impact public health.
• The parent award must be active when the application is submitted. The parent award cannot be in a no cost extension.
• Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis from April 7, 2020 to June 1, 2020 at 5:00 PM local time of the applicant organization. This NOSI expires on June 2, 2020. An application submitted in response to this NOSI that is received on/after the expiration date will be withdrawn.

• All applications must be submitted electronically as follows:
  • Administrative supplement applications to PA-18-591 must use the application form package with the Competition ID of FORMS-E-ADMINSUPP-RESEARCH". This FOA will be reissued with a FORMS-F-ADMINSUPP-RESEARCH package on May 25, 2020. Submissions to PA-18-591 must be completed by June 25, 2020 (see NOT-OD-20-026 for details.) Submissions to the reissued FOA will be accepted on or after May 25, 2020 through the expiration date of this Notice. In addition, the process for Streamlined Submissions using the eRA Commons cannot be used for this initiative.
  • Competitive revision applications to PA-18-935 must use the application form package with the Competition ID of NOT-DC-20-004-FORMS-E." This FOA will be reissued with a NOT-DC-20-004-FORMS-F package on May 25, 2020. Submissions to PA-18-935 must be completed by June 25, 2020. Submissions to the reissued FOA will be accepted on or after May 25, 2020 through the expiration date of this Notice
• IMPORTANT: For funding consideration, all applicants must designate NOT-DC-20-004 (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.
• Review criteria for Urgent Competitive Revisions, in addition to those described in PA-18-935: As applicable for the project proposed, reviewers will evaluate the following additional items and their responsiveness to the immediate need to help address a specific, public health crisis in a timely manner, but will not give separate scores for these items.

• Evaluate whether the investigators have immediate access to the necessary resources (e.g. patient samples, isolates, test kits, laboratory access, etc.) to achieve the aims of the proposed research.
• Evaluate plans for the execution of the proposed work if laboratory access is limited or restricted due to the COVID19 pandemic.
• If the proposed research will generate unique resources or data that may impact the public health response, evaluate if the resource sharing plan is adequate.