Key Dates

Related Announcements

• June 10, 2024 - Notice of Change to Increase the Application Budget Limit in PAR-23-145 "Maximizing Investigators Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (ESI) (R35 - Clinical Trial Optional)". See Notice NOT-GM-24-042
• May 24, 2022 - Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (ESI) (R35 - Clinical Trial Optional). See NOFO PAR-23-145. 

Issued by

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice is to inform applicants to PAR-23-145 “Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (ESI) (R35 - Clinical Trial Optional)” of the updated instructions for the R&R Budget form to include information about requesting Data Management and Sharing (DMS) costs. This Notice is applicable for applications submitted on/after October 5, 2023. 

The following sections of this funding opportunity have been modified accordingly.

Part 2. Section IV. Application and Submission Information

R&R Budget

Currently reads:

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

Itemized budget information is not required and will not be accepted. Instead, a total requested direct cost amount for each budget period, including requests for equipment purchase, is required. Do not include annual inflationary increases. Applications may request up to $250,000 direct costs per year including equipment and consortium direct costs.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed except as detailed below. While a 10-year R&R Detailed Budget form is provided in the application package, applicants may not request more than 5 years of support.

In order to allow submission of a budget request without filling out detailed yearly budgets, some basic information must be completed in order for NIH to successfully process the budget form. For each budget period:

1. For Budget Type select Project.  A separate budget form for any Subaward/Consortium is not required for this NOFO.

2. Provide the Budget Period Start Date and End Date.

3. In Section A: Senior/Key Persons, provide an entry for the PD/PI, including the appropriate level of effort, and enter $0 for Requested Salary and $0 for Fringe Benefits. Entering $0 does not imply that the PD/PI will not receive any salary or fringe benefit support from the grant.

4. In Section C: Equipment Description, enter budget request for equipment. Provide complete justification using the Budget Justification.

5. In Section F: Other Direct Costs, add a line item titled Requested Direct Costs and provide the total request for that budget period (up to $250,000). If equipment is requested in Section C, do not add the equipment budget in Section F. If subaward/consortium costs are requested, the subaward/consortium direct costs (not including consortium F&A) should be included in the "Requested Direct Costs."

6. In Section H: Indirect Costs, enter your institutional "indirect cost type," "indirect cost rate," "indirect cost base" and "funds requested."

Budget Justification: The following budget categories must be justified, where applicable: equipment and subaward/consortium costs. 

Use the Budget Justification to provide the additional information requested in each budget category identified above only. Equipment quote(s) may be included here.

Consortium Justification: Consortium/Contractual Arrangements are not anticipated in most cases and must be extremely well justified. A letter from the subcontract PD/PI should be included making it clear why they cannot participate in collaborative research with the PD/PI without support from the MIRA. NIGMS will accept MIRA applications with foreign collaborations but will only provide funding for a foreign consortium arrangement when the collaboration is essential to the PD's/PI's research program and represents a unique scientific opportunity that cannot be supported by the collaborator without MIRA funds. List the individuals/organizations with whom consortium or contractual arrangements have been made and indicate whether the collaborating institution is foreign or domestic. Provide the total consortium/subaward costs for each budget period listing the total direct costs and indirect (F&A) costs separately.

F&A base: Also use the Budget Justification to explain any exclusions applied to the F&A base calculation.

Modified to read (changes shown in bold italics):

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

Itemized budget information is not required and will not be accepted. Instead, a total requested direct cost amount for each budget period, including requests for equipment purchase, is required.  Applications may request up to $250,000 direct costs per year including equipment and consortium direct costs. It is expected that the annual Total Direct Costs in Section G will remain constant in all years.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed except as detailed below. While a 10-year R&R Detailed Budget form is provided in the application package, applicants may not request more than 5 years of support.

In order to allow submission of a budget request without filling out detailed yearly budgets, some basic information must be completed in order for NIH to successfully process the budget form. For each budget period:

1. For Budget Type select Project.  A separate budget form for any Subaward/Consortium is not required for this NOFO.

2. Provide the Budget Period Start Date and End Date.

3. In Section A: Senior/Key Persons, provide an entry for the PD/PI, including the appropriate level of effort, and enter $0 for Requested Salary and $0 for Fringe Benefits. Entering $0 does not imply that the PD/PI will not receive any salary or fringe benefit support from the grant.

4. In Section C: Equipment Description, enter budget request for equipment. Provide complete justification using the Budget Justification.

5. In Section F: Other Direct Costs, add a line item titled Requested Direct Costs and provide the total request for that budget period (up to $250,000) including any costs requested for Data Management and Sharing Costs. If equipment is requested in Section C, do not add the equipment budget in Section F. If subaward/consortium costs are requested, the subaward/consortium direct costs (not including consortium F&A) should be included in the “Requested Direct Costs." It is expected that ‘Requested Direct Costs’ (entered in Section F) will remain constant in all years unless equipment is requested in Section C.

6. In Section H: Indirect Costs, enter your institutional "indirect cost type," "indirect cost rate," "indirect cost base" and "funds requested."

Note: Sections B, D, and E of the detailed budget page should be left blank.

Budget Justification: The following budget categories must be justified, where applicable: data management and sharing costs, equipment and subaward/consortium costs. 

Use the Budget Justification to provide the additional information requested in each budget category identified above only. 

Data Management and Sharing Costs: NIGMS’ expectation is that most NIGMS recipients will not need to significantly change their data management and sharing practices to comply with the NIH DMS Policy requirements and thus additional costs, if any, will be modest. 

Justification for any requested Data Management and Sharing costs should be clearly labeled as "Data Management and Sharing Justification" followed by the estimated dollar amount. If no costs are requested for DMS, state “0” for the estimated  dollar amount. Follow instructions in the SF424 Application Guide for the Data Management and Sharing Justification, in Section L: Budget Justification. 

Equipment: quote(s) may be included here.

Consortium Justification: Consortium/Contractual Arrangements are not anticipated in most cases and must be extremely well justified. A letter from the subcontract PD/PI should be included making it clear why they cannot participate in collaborative research with the PD/PI without support from the MIRA. NIGMS will accept MIRA applications with foreign collaborations but will only provide funding for a foreign consortium arrangement when the collaboration is essential to the PD's/PI's research program and represents a unique scientific opportunity that cannot be supported by the collaborator without MIRA funds. List the individuals/organizations with whom consortium or contractual arrangements have been made and indicate whether the collaborating institution is foreign or domestic. Provide the total subaward/consortium costs for each budget period listing the total direct costs and indirect (F&A) costs separately.

F&A base: Also use the Budget Justification to explain any exclusions applied to the F&A base calculation.

All other aspects of this Notice of Funding Opportunity remain the same.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Lisa Moeller
Grants Administration Branch
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Email: [email protected]