Notice Number: NOT-MH-16-018

Key Dates
Release Date: July 26, 2016

Issued by
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice is to inform the scientific community of the NIMH Division of AIDS Research (DAR; http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/organization/dar/index.shtml) plan to implement the 2016 NIH HIV/AIDS Research Priorities and Guidelines for Determining AIDS Funding, as announced via NOT-OD-15-137. This Notice provides guidelines for determining whether a research project has a high-, medium-, or low-priority for receiving AIDS-designated funding. These guidelines do not assess/determine the scientific and technical merit of a project, only the priority for receiving AIDS-designated funds. NIH will use these guidelines to ensure that AIDS resources are supporting the highest HIV/AIDS-relevant research priorities. While meritorious projects that are not aligned with the NIH-designated high priority research topics could nominally receive partial non-AIDS designated funds, such funds are not likely to be available to NIMH for AIDS-related applications. Therefore, regardless of the scientific merit and priority score from NIH peer review, applications assigned to NIMH/DAR that are determined to be medium or low priority may be pro-rated and only eligible to receive partial funding for the AIDS-relevant component of the proposed science with AIDS-designated funds. This partial funding could negatively impact the completion of the proposed research.

Accordingly, applicants are strongly encouraged to contact Division of AIDS Research program staff prior to application submission, so that program staff can provide their assessment of the high, medium, or low alignment of the research topic with the HIV/AIDS guidelines.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Program staff at the National Institute of Mental Health http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/organization/dar/index.shtml