Notice Number: NOT-HS-12-012

Key Dates
Release Date: August 17, 2012

Issued by
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Purpose

This Notice is to inform the scientific community that AHRQ is clarifying the criteria regarding scholar eligibility noted in AHRQ Mentored Career Enhancement Award in Patient Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) for Mid-Career and Senior Investigators (K18) PAR-12-115 (see https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-12-115.html).

Section III. Eligibility Information

1.B. Eligible Individuals

Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI)

This award is intended for mid-career and senior investigators holding a research or health professional doctorate who are at the academic rank of Associate Professor or Professor (or the equivalent in nonacademic settings), who have established records of independent, peer-reviewed Federal or private research grant funding, who seek an intense, mentored career development experience in comparative effectiveness methodology which will substantially improve their ability to pursue future research in PCOR.  Targeted candidates are: 1) faculty, providers or researchers without expertise in comparative effectiveness research who are located at institutions that do not possess intensive CER programs; and 2) faculty, providers or researchers who are located at institutions that possess intensive CER programs, but who do not possess individual expertise in CER. The research career enhancement experience shall occur at a host institution, whether in the candidate’s home institution (i.e. in which the candidate holds his/her primary appointment) or in another institution with the appropriate resources to provide the proposed research career development experience.  In both cases, the tutelage of well-qualified mentor(s) is required.

Clarification:

Please note that the above criteria include both candidates who possess “limited” CER skills and those who do not possess any CER skills.  Candidates must demonstrate in the application specific aims that they meet these criteria and do not possess sophisticated CER expertise based on their education, teaching, and current and past research.  They must also demonstrate how their planned mentored phase is needed in order to equip them with new complex CER methodological skills that will prepare them to take their planned research careers in new directions distinctly different from their current research.  The proposed research project must utilize the CER methodological skills gained during the mentored phase.  Reviewers will assess if candidates adequately demonstrate their need for the mentored award, given their present skills and research portfolio, their mentoring plans, their proposed research project, and their future research plans.   The award is not intended to further support a current methodological or substantive line of work currently pursued by candidates; but rather to equip candidates with “needed sophisticated CER methodological skills” to take their research in a new direction.  The intent is to prepare candidates to be independent investigators in Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR), by providing them the necessary sophisticated CER methodological skills to do so. 

Individuals are NOT eligible if they:

• Have simultaneously submitted or have an application pending peer review for any other similar PHS career award, or a research project grant (e.g., R01, R18) applying complex comparative effectiveness methodology in the conduct of PCOR.  However, individuals may concurrently submit an application for an AHRQ or NIH Small Grant (R03) or Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21);
• Have been or are currently a PD/PI on AHRQ or NIH research grants utilizing complex CER methodological skills in the conduct of PCOR (such as R01, R29, P01) or subproject leaders on Program Project (P01) and Center Grants (P50), or non-AHRQ/NIH equivalents to these grants/awards;
• Have been or are currently a PD/PI on peer-reviewed non-AHRQ/NIH, other PHS, or non-PHS research grants, cooperative agreements, or contracts with direct costs exceeding $100,000 per year for more than two years, which require the application of complex CER methodological skills in the conduct of PCOR .

Inquiries

Inquiries concerning this Notice may be directed to the Scientific Contact listed in the FOA.