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From 2014 to 2018, the NIH budget increased every year, and yet, the Research Project Grant (RPG) success rate remained relatively constant at ~20%. From 2003 to 2006 the NIH budget remained relatively flat, yet the success rate decreased dramatically from 30% to 20%. Why don’t success rates neatly track the NIH budget? While inflation plays a role, there are more fundamental forces at play.
Here, Mike Lauer presents a series of budget and success rate scenarios that are largely based on a Service Science publication by Larson, Ghaffarzadegan, and Diaz. The bottom-line up front: NIH funding dynamics are strongly affected by obligations incurred by grant awards made in previous years – what NIHs calls “out-year obligations” – and by responses of the research community to NIH budget increases.
As a reminder, Success rates are calculated by dividing the number of awards made in a fiscal year by the number of applications received (see also NIH's recent By The Numbers post). The calculation includes applications that are peer reviewed and either scored or unscored by an Initial Review Group. Applications having one or more amendments in the same fiscal year are only counted once.
Imagine a simplified funding agency that receives an annual budget of $1 billion (or $1000 million). This budget has been constant for years. The agency only spends money on competing or non-competing grant awards (in other words, there is no overhead for agency management). Each award costs exactly $1 million each year and lasts for exactly 4 years. NIH also assumes that there is no inflation and that every year the agency receives 1000 competing applications.
At the beginning of each fiscal year, the agency is already obligated to award $1 million for the 2nd-year non-competing renewal of each award given last year, for the 3rd-year non-competing renewal of each award given 2 years ago, and for the 4th-year non-competing renewal of each award given 3 years ago. That means that as the year starts, three-quarters (75%) of the agency’s budget is already obligated to support ongoing awards awaiting expected non-competing renewals. Only 25% of the budget is available for new competing awards. Read the full article here.
Topic: Cost Sharing or Matching Funds
Hello ATSU Grants Community! Sponsored Programs, in conjunction with the Finance Office, will be delivering a series of grants management coaching memos, directives, and updates to support project directors, principal investigators, project teams, ATSU operations teams, and staff in fiscal management of grants awarded to ATSU.
Detailed Information
Cost sharing means that a portion of the project's cost is not being paid by the funder. Often called matching funds; the funder may require a percentage of the total award be contributed by the applicant organization. At ATSU, all committed cost-share must be pre-authorized at the pre-award stage and identified within ATSU’s official Internal Approval Form (IAF).
• Voluntary cost-share is discouraged at ATSU.
• Mandatory cost-share must abide ATSU and funder guidelines and be tracked/reported to the
funder throughout project implementation.
Cost sharing items/services are made available as a contribution to the project by the applicant or third-party participant(s); they can be goods or services having monetary value such as: cash, equipment, use of specialized facilities, staff and volunteer services, or supplies. Cost-sharing involves assessment of fair market value at time of use.
Summary Conclusion
Uniform Guidance for Federal Awards 2 CFR Part 200 defines cost sharing as the portion of the project not paid by the funder. The cost- share requirement is designed to commit the applicant to the project with items/services of real value. Such commitments, however, require substantial documentation and tracking over the course of project implementation and are therefore discouraged when not mandatory.
New CITI Webinars
3 new CITI webinars have been added to the Sponsored Programs portal site.
These include:
Are you an Early Stage Investigator (ESI)? A new FAQ is available:
No. ESI policies and the “no more than 4 years of postdoctoral research experience” requirement for some of the NIH’s funding opportunities (e.g., K99/R00) are two separate policies and do not impact one another. Read the full FAQ for details.
Did you miss the webinar on the implementation of the simplified review framework for RPGs? Not to worry, the presentation resources are now available! Reference the slides and transcript, or dive right in to the video, which includes sections on:
One question NIH sometimes hears in the Office of Grants Management at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) is, “Why is my budget from NCCIH lower than what I requested?” Debbie Chen, Chief Grants Management Officer, offers some insights and tips.
After you submit your application, an initial review group (IRG) reviews your proposal, an NCCIH scientific review officer prepares a summary statement, and your application undergoes secondary review by the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health. If your project is selected for funding, Grants Management will review your budget for compliance with Federal grant regulations, National Institutes of Health (NIH) policies, and funding opportunity requirements.
Some reasons that budget cuts are made include:
Read the full article here.
NIH is committed to ensuring accountability and transparency of NIH research spending. To this end, they are sharing how they review and adapt methodologies to provide accurate reports of NIH expenditures for NIH Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC) categories. This year, the categories of Minority Health, Health Disparities, and Biodefense are being replaced with several new categories to improve their accuracy and transparency.
Today, NIH is focusing on changes made to the minority health and health disparities RCDC categories for fiscal year 2023; these changes reflect switching from manual to automated coding. The manual minority health and health disparities categories are now five new automated categories:
Read the full article here.
The Division of Research, Grants & Scholarly Innovations (RGSI) consists of an administrative core and 3 departments: Sponsored Programs (SP), Research Support (RS), and A.T. Still Research Institute (ATSRI).