Recovery Act Limited Competition for Revision Applications

About Common Fund Competitive Revision Applications

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces the opportunity for investigators and United States institutions/organizations with active NIH-supported research project grants (including SBIR and STTR) to submit revision applications (formerly termed competitive supplements) to support a significant expansion of the scope or research protocol of approved and funded projects. Support for these revision applications will come from funds provided to NIH through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“Recovery Act” or “ARRA”), Public Law 111-5. In addition, Recovery Act funds allocated to NIH specifically for comparative effectiveness research (CER) may be available to support supplements. Projects receiving these funds will need to meet this definition of CER: “a rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Such a study may compare similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or it may analyze very different approaches, such as surgery and drug therapy.” Such research may include the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data as they apply to CER.

This announcement is one of three ARRA administrative supplement/competitive revision notices issued by NIH. Approximately $1 billion of ARRA funds will be obligated by September 30, 2010 to support requests submitted in response to these three notices or any reissuance of these notices.

This initiative is one of several being offered by the Common Fund to help fulfill the goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to help stimulate the economy through support of biomedical and behavioral research. Additional information on the Recovery Act and related NIH opportunities is available through the Office of Extramural Research.

Scientific Priorities

The NIH Common Fund supports research projects whose areas of science span the missions of the NIH Institutes and Centers. For the Competitive Revisions initiative, the Common Fund will restrict support to those parent awards that have been made through NIH Roadmap initiatives.

Funding Priorities

The Common Fund does not have a targeted amount of ARRA funds that it intends to spend on Competitive Revisions. Also, for this initiative, the Common Fund will accept requests for revision applications to most active Roadmap-initiated Project or NIH Research Project and Research Program and Center Grant (Ps). This does not include Pioneer Awards (DP1s), but would include New Innovator Awards (DP2s), P01 and R01 grants, as well as Cooperative Agreements (Us). Fellowships (Fs) and Conference Grants (R13s) will not be considered for revisions. (Note: Most Ks and Ts are eligible for administrative supplements [see NOT-OD-09-056]. Recognize that these are 2-year awards and probably are most appropriate at the post-doctoral level.)

Application Receipt Dates:

The deadline for receipt of these revision applications is April 21, 2009. Resubmissions will only be accepted if this notice is reissued.

How to Apply

Generally, applicants interested in applying for Revision support under a program (activity code) that has already transitioned to electronic submission must submit the application through Grants.gov, using the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) that was used for the parent grant. Or, if this FOA is no longer active, use the Parent FOA that matches the program (activity code) of the award

The exception to the above guidance is the DP2 mechanism. Applicants interested in applying for Revision support under the DP2 program may not use the electronic submission process. Instead, a paper version of the PHS 398 application must be submitted to the Division of Receipt and Referral, CSR.

The New Innovator Award Program had abbreviated application requirements. The NIH requires additional information for Competitive Revisions. When requesting a revision, the applicant should follow the standard format for R01s, as stated in PA-07-070. Please note; these instructions are being provided as a guide for completion of the form pages. The PA instructions that pertain to the electronic submission of the application DO NOT apply to this program. Applications must be submitted via paper copy to CSR.

• For Electronic submissions, the activity code (e.g., R01, R03, R15, R21, R25, R33, R34, R21/R33, R41, R42, R43, R44, SC1, SC2, SC3) of the prior submission (referenced by the Federal Identifier on the SF 424 RR Cover page) must match the activity code of the FOA used for the revision. Revision applications for conference grants (R13s) are not permitted.
• For revisions to Program Project grants (P01), Center grants (e.g., P20, P30, P50), Cooperative Agreements (e.g., U01), Training Grants (e.g., T32), New Innovators (DP2) and Institutional Career Development Awards submitted in paper, an FOA is not required. This Notice should be mentioned in the cover letter.
• For all other eligible activity codes that have transitioned to electronic submission, use the following chart to identify the appropriate Parent FOA under which to submit through Grants.gov if the original FOA has expired::

Contact Information

For specific information on the responsiveness of the Competitive Revision applications that you are submitting, please contact the IC Grants Management or Program contact for the parent award.

For general information on Common Fund implementation of Competitive Revisions, contact:

Brenda Weis, Ph.D.
Operations Team Leader
OD/Office of Strategic Coordination
National Institutes of Health
301-435-5840
weis@mail.nih.gov

For general information on Common Fund Financial or Grants Management questions, contact:

Scott Jackson
Process Manager
OD/Office of Strategic Coordination
National Institutes of Health
301-496-9123
jacksonsc@mail.nih.gov

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