Notice Number: NOT-OD-19-056

Key Dates
Release Date: January 9, 2019

NOT-OD-19-029
NOT-OD-15-152
NOT-OD-18-172
NOT-GM-19-017

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Purpose

The purpose of this notice is to clarify that the information regarding an institutional commitment to ensuring that proper policies, procedures, and oversight are in place to prevent discriminatory harassment and other discriminatory practices is to be included in the same letter with the information about the applicant institutional commitment to the planned program. Separate letters are not required. The signed letter should be on institutional letterhead from a President, Provost, Dean, or other key institutional leader with institution-wide responsibilities.

This is applicable to all applications for National Institutes of Health (NIH) institutional training grants (T15, T32, T34, T35, T36, T37, T90/R90, TL1, TL4) submitted for due dates on or after January 25, 2019. The specific section in which the harassment and discrimination protections should appear is detailed below.

Policy

For Institutional Training (T) Applications (T15, T32, T34, T35, T36, T37, T90/R90, TL1, TL4):

As part of the Letters of Support on the PHS 398 Research Training Program Plan form, applications
currently include a description of the applicant institution's commitment to the planned program in order to ensure its success (e.g., providing facilities and a research environment conducive to preparing trainees for successful careers as biomedical research scientists; providing appropriate inter- or multidisciplinary research training opportunities and courses which will allow trainees to acquire state-of-the-art scientific knowledge).

In the same letter, applicants should include a description of the institutional commitment to the following areas:

(i) ensuring that proper policies, procedures, and oversight are in place to prevent discriminatory harassment and other discriminatory practices;

(ii) responding appropriately to allegations of discriminatory practices, including any required
notifications to OCR (see NOT-OD-15-152); and

(iii) adopting and following institutional procedure for requesting NIH prior approval of a change in the status of the Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) or other senior/key personnel if administrative or disciplinary action is taken that impacts the ability of the PD/PI or other key personnel to continue his/her role on the NIH award described in the training grant application (also see NOT-OD-18-172 re policy on change in PD/PI status).

The signed letter should be on institutional letterhead from a President, Provost, Dean, or other key institutional leader with institution-wide responsibilities.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Division of Biomedical Research Workforce
Office of Extramural Research
Website: https://researchtraining.nih.gov
Email: [email protected]