May 10, 2023
- October 9, 2020 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional). See NOFO PA-20-272.
Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS)
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
NIH is committed to growing a stronger and broader community in data science for turning discoveries into health. This NOSI invites applications for administrative supplements to eligible NIH awards to enhance data science capacity in institutions serving medically underserved communities and underrepresented students as described in the Notice of NIH’s Interest in Diversity (NOT-OD-20-031). This NOSI aligns with the NIH Data Science Strategic Plan to ensure that data science advances in biomedical and health research can benefit all populations.
Background
Every facet of the United States scientific research enterprise - from basic laboratory research to clinical and translational research to policy formation - requires superior intellect, creativity and a wide range of skill sets and viewpoints. NIH’s ability to help ensure that the nation remains a global leader in scientific discovery and innovation is dependent upon a pool of highly talented scientists from diverse backgrounds who will help to further NIH's mission (see Notice of NIH's Interest in Diversity, NOT-OD-20-031).
The eligible awards for this NOSI include the following programs from the participating NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs):
- NIMHD Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI)
- NIGMS Institutional Development Award (IDeA)
- NCI Comprehensive Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity (CPACHE); and NCI Feasibility Studies to Build Collaborative Partnerships in Cancer Research
The NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021–2025 recognizes data science as a cross-cutting theme for the strategic objectives in research areas, research capacity and research conduct. Advances in data science to collect, analyze, access, and share the increasing volume and complexity of data in biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and social sciences bring tremendous opportunities as well as challenges in data ethics, security, privacy and bias.
Through the STRIDES Initiative (https://datascience.nih.gov/strides), ODSS provides NIH and its funded researchers with cost-effective access to state-of-the-art cloud-based data storage and computational capabilities, tools, and expertise. Applicants to this NOSI are encouraged to take advantage of the STRIDES Initiative for their NIH-funded research projects. The STRIDES Initiative supports partnerships with industry-leading commercial providers who offer favorable pricing on advanced cloud-based technology, training, and professional services to help investigators to start working in the cloud.
The Science Collaborative for Health Disparities and Artificial Intelligence bias Reduction (ScHARe) data platform is a novel cloud-based behavioral, population science, and social determinants of health data ecosystem sponsored by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute of Nursing Research. ScHARe fosters cloud computing skills among women and other underrepresented populations with health disparities, ensuring that the power of data science works for everyone. It also provides affordable cloud resources, including 300 centralized data sets, especially to low resource minority serving institutions and community colleges to conduct cutting edge health disparities research and use as a classroom resource. ScHARe offers tutorials and research collaboration platforms through monthly virtual interactive Think-a-Thons.
Programmatic Objectives and Scope
This initiative supports efforts to build institutional capacity in areas of data science. Examples of these areas include, but are not limited to, artificial intelligence, clinical informatics, cloud computing, statistics, computational science, software design and programming, bioinformatics, visualization, machine learning, predictive analytics, supercomputing, modeling and simulation, data sharing and access, data management, data compression and standards, data security and data privacy in human subject’s research, and research ethics and integrity.
Applications must address one or more of the following three objectives:
1. Objective 1: Grow human capital with data science competencies, such as knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors. Activities within this objective may include but are not limited to:
- Training courses and/or education events that enhance data-relevant skills and knowledge, engages interest, and builds confidence, and/or promotes access to data science mentors.
- Engagement of experts to support data science activities such as innovative reuse of existing datasets, writing data sharing and management plans, instructional design for data science training, and research design for data science projects and others.
- Short-term mentored internship experiences that develop data science competencies of undergraduate and graduate students.
- Training for members of Institutional Review Board (IRB) on the review of proposals for secondary analyses of existing data from clinical research and clinical services.
2. Objective 2: Develop or expand infrastructure to support data science research, training, and education. Activities within this objective may include but are not limited to:
- Institutional activities that enhance the researchers’ ability to conduct data science-relevant biomedical and health research.
- Activities that enhance researchers’ access to controlled and registered datasets.
- Activities that encourage research with computational tools and datasets available in secure workspaces or workbenches of NIH cloud resources, for example, through the ScHARe data platform and other repositories for sharing scientific data.
3. Objective 3: Build data science partnerships. Activities within this objective may include but are not limited to:
- Efforts that enhance collaboration between researchers from different disciplines conducting research with shared data science focus area.
- Activities that establish learning communities to help participants such as students, educators, and community partners to develop data science identity, equitable data practices, and sense of belonging to the data science community.
- Development of partnerships with academic and industry partners to provide opportunities for students and exposure to data science career pathways.
- Partnerships with other institutions or organizations that enhance data science knowledge and skills of the researchers and students in the institution.
Applications are strongly encouraged to include activities that enhance institutional awareness, knowledge and communication of data ethics and risk management for cybersecurity.
Proposed supplement projects for this initiative may complement ongoing programs and other efforts occurring at the applicant institution, but the proposed projects must be distinct from those programs and efforts currently receiving Federal support.
No aim removed in response to the initial peer review from the parent grant may be proposed as the basis for a supplement. The supplemental aims must be in scope and synergistic with the approved, ongoing research of the parent grant. Applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss their proposed supplement project with the IC Program Officer of the funded parent award prior to submission of a supplement application, to ensure that the proposed activity aligns with the scientific priorities of the IC and is within the scope of the parent award. Scientific inquiries may also be addressed to the contacts listed in the Inquiries section below.
IC Specific Application and Submission Information:
Applicants must select the IC and associated Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to use for submission of an application in response to this NOSI. The selection must align with the IC requirements listed in order to be considered responsive to that NOFO. Non-responsive applications will be withdrawn from consideration for this initiative.
National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD):
The NIMHD Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program supports specialized research centers in institutions that offer doctoral degrees in the health professions or health-related sciences and have an historical and current commitment to educating students underrepresented in the biomedical sciences. To be eligible for an administrative supplement under this NOSI, the parent RCMI U54 or U24 award must:
- be awarded under either RFA-MD-17-003, RFA-MD-17-006, RFA-MD-18-012, RFA-MD-20-006, RFA-MD-20-007, or RFA-MD-22-002.
- be an active NIH award at the time of application (i.e., within five years of the start date of the originally reviewed and approved project period of the existing parent RCMI U54’s competitive segment; or if applicable, within the originally reviewed and approved project period of a competitive revision), and
- have sufficient time left to complete the studies proposed within the parent award's current project period.
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS):
NIGMS eligibility for this supplement program is limited to current awardees of the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Networks for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR, U54), the Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE, P20, P30) and the IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE, P20) IDeA programs. Additionally, the supplement request must be consistent with the terms and conditions of the parent IDeA award.
National Cancer Institute (NCI):
The NCI will support applications from parent awards funded through the U54 and/or P20 PACHE program. Specifically, applications should come from the MSI partner of these partnerships, not the Cancer Center partner. NCI will fund supplements that focus on developing research, educational, and outreach activities to increase the MSI’s capacity in data science. The research activities should complement or enhance the partnership goals. The education activities should be directed to develop new courses in data sciences or new experiences for students, postdoctoral, or investigators. Outreach activities can focus, for example, on expanding partnerships with underserved communities and developing education programs using culturally appropriate education tools about the importance of data science and its benefits.
Reporting Requirements
Recipients of administrative supplements are required to report progress associated with the supplement activities in the annual Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) and/or the Final RPPR, as applicable. For these supplements, the reporting expectation is that major accomplishments during the relevant budget period are listed explicitly and with enough detail to allow evaluation of progress. Additionally, if funding will continue into the next budget period, planned activities should be discussed at the same level of granularity. Failure to comply with these reporting requirements may result in delayed processing of the non-competing continuation and/or delays of the award closeout.
Budget
To be eligible, the parent award must be able to receive funds in FY23 (October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023) and must not be in the final year or a terminal no-cost extension period as of September 1, 2023.
Supplement budget requests cannot exceed $250,000/year in Direct Cost exclusive of Facilities and Administrative costs on sub-awards. Requests may be for up to two years of support, with second year support contingent upon satisfactory progress during the first year. Budgets may not exceed the total direct costs of the current parent award and must be commensurate with the actual needs of the proposed project. An awarded supplement amount, in combination with the parent award amount, may provide support above the established dollar limit for the parent grant award.
Funds must be used to meet increased costs that are within the scope of the approved award, but were unforeseen when the new or renewal application or grant progress report for non-competing continuation support was submitted.
Funds can be used to cover cost increases that are associated with achieving certain new research objectives, as long as the research objectives are within the original scope of the peer reviewed and approved project, or the cost increases are for unanticipated expenses within the original scope of the project.
Application and Submission Information
Recently issued NIH policy notices may affect your application submission. The NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts provides a complete list of policy notices published by the NIH. All awards are subject to the terms and conditions, cost principles, and other considerations described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.
Applications for this initiative must be submitted using the following opportunity or its subsequent reissued equivalent.
- PA-20-272 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and PA-20-272 must be followed, with the following additions:
- The proposed supplement project period must be within the currently approved project period for the parent award and cannot exceed 2 years.
- Application Due Date(s) – June 19, 2023 and April 1, 2024, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
- For funding consideration, applicants must include“NOT-OD-23-123 ” (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.
- The Research Strategy section of the application is limited to 6 pages. Each application must clearly state which of the three program objectives are addressed by the proposed supplement project and include plans for (1) continuity and sustainability of the activities beyond the period of the supplement support; and (2) plans for evaluation of the outcomes and impacts of the supplement.
- Only existing active awardees of the eligible programs may apply.
- Each eligible parent award is limited to no more than one supplement request through this NOSI.
- Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the Program Officer at the IC supporting the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this NOSI to facilitate efficient processing of the application.
- The Budget Justification must include a statement regarding the expenditure plans of currently available unobligated grant funds for the parent award, in order to demonstrate the need for additional funds.
- For this Administrative Supplement, the NCI will only accept applications submitted by the MSI partner of the U54 and P20 partnerships.
Please direct all inquiries to:
Raphael Isokpehi, Ph.D.
NIH Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS)
Email: [email protected]
Utibe Bickham-Wright, Ph.D., PMP
National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
Email: [email protected]
H. Nelson Aguila, D.V.M.
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Email: [email protected]
Behrous Davani, Ph.D.
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Email: [email protected]
Lakshmi Kumar Matukumalli, Ph.D.
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Email: [email protected]
and Human Services (HHS)
