Talking to your Program Officer is not good enough - NCEs

If you are coming to the end of your funded NIH award and still have funds left to spend, you can request a no-cost extension to finish your project and spend out your remaining money. Until now, you could either request the extension in the era commons or request this through your program officer. Recently, NIH released a notice that changes the process for those of you who have been relying on program officers. Now, as of October 1, 2011, you will be required to use the era commons to request a no-cost extension. The No-Cost Extension (NCE) feature does not appear as an option in the era commons until 90 days before the end of your grant. It will disappear at midnight on the last day of your grant year. This means that you must remember to log in to the commons and submit the request, or you may lose your chance. Set yourself a reminder in Outlook or put it on your calendar, and make sure that you remember to do it. If you typically rely on a sponsored programs office to do this type of thing for you, make sure that you double check and ensure that it has been done.

Applying for "Selected Topics in Transfusion Medicine" R01?

If you are planning to apply for this NHLBI R01 opportunity, a notice recently released by NIH impacts the due dates. Instead of sticking with standard R01 deadlines, the next deadline will be February 5th 2012 (same as parent R01s), but the deadline after that will not be in June. Rather, your next opportunity for a non-AIDS application will be October 5th. That means, if you don't have your act together by February, you will have to wait another 8 months. So don't wait- get started now!