Advice on managing awarded grants with vertebrate animals

NIAID provides a page with useful advice and links to key resources.  If you are managing a grant award that involved vertebrate animals, click here for helpful information.

More Sample NIH Funded Grant Proposals

Given the demand for sample NIH R01, R03, R21 and other proposals, here are links to more sample grant proposals:

• Sample proposals of various types and topics
• 2 R01 applications, an F31 application, and some NSF examples from Toledo

Interestingly, more and more of the previously publicly-available sample NIH grant proposals from universities around the country are becoming available only to faculty and staff.  Ultimately, funded proposals are all public materials.  You can request a copy of a funded proposal from any researcher and they should provide it to you.  Some may be more secretive about sharing this information, and others may outright try to keep it from you, but ultimately due to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) should should be able to receive a copy.  The NIH FOIA Office has more details on these requests here.  Our taxpayer dollars are paying for these research projects, and more information should be available to the people who work hard every day for the tax dollars to be taken out of their paychecks to fund research grants. 

The NIH Public Access Policy started off on the right track as it was created to make research findings more accessible to everyone.  However, the publishing industry managed to put systems in place that have still weakened this policy's effect.  I hope that more researchers will decide to be forthcoming with their research proposals and share them for the benefit of younger researchers who are new to grant proposal writing and would like to see successful samples. 

NIH allows electronic supplement requests

If you are fortunate enough to have followed all of my advice and obtained funding for an NIH grant, you may be interested in knowing that NIH now allows electronic supplement requests.  Until fairly recently, the process for requesting a supplement was either confusing, complicated, or unbelievably easy, depending on the institute or center and program officer you were dealing with.  This new process will streamline supplement requests and hopefully make life easier for researchers everywhere.  For a great podcast titled "Submitting Supplements Electronically", created by NIH, click here. 

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.

Joe Biden is on your side...

In an article published today by CNS News, Joe Biden lashes out at individuals who complain about the merits of some NIH-funded projects. The article mentions several funded grants including a $60,000 grant to study hookah smoking in college students in Jordan. The vice president clearly supports NIH, stating in the CNS News article that those who complain about NIH-funded projects "know nothing about science". While I applaud the VP's effort to support NIH and the important work of NIH scientists, in some ways I do agree with the critics. While many projects may seem insignificant to the lay person, within their respective fields they may be contributing to ground-breaking research. Unfortunately the only easy public access to learn about funded NIH grants is through the NIH RePORTER database. This is the revised version of CRISP, and includes information about past and current projects including award amounts and abstracts. However, the database does not include full proposals or progress reports. While I understand that these may contain some confidential information such as unpublished research data, I believe it is important for the public to view entire proposals and be able to examine the progress of funded projects. An abstract does not convey the significance of a project to its field, or fully explain the path that a particular project may pave for other projects. Without this information, it is understandable that many members of the public may label some NIH-funded projects as wasteful.

Update: This post also illustrates the public outcry that can result when complete and accurate information is not made public. Though it is focused on a USAID-funded project, the same principle still applies.