Instructions for Administrative Supplement Requests

Instructions for submission of requests for supplement awards to NINDS Research Education Programs for Residents and Fellows in Neurology, Neurosurgery, Neuropathology and Neuroradiology (R25)
(RFAs: NS-09-001, NS-10-002, NS-12-003)

Please contact Stephen Korn (korns@ninds.nih.gov) with any questions.

Please note that, except for changes described under “New for 2012,” this document does not replace instructions provided in the parent RFA, but is an attempt to outline the items needed in a supplement application.

New for 2012

1. Supplement applications must be received by October 31, 2012 for consideration. Because of the need to review applications and send recommendations to January Council, late submissions will not be considered.
   
   
2. Previously, each resident/fellow was considered as a separate supplement application. Starting this year, you should submit just a single application, which requests funding for all of the residents/fellows you’d like to support. Please follow the instructions below carefully to clearly delineate the request for each resident/fellow within the supplement request.
   
   
3. Supplement applications should be submitted electronically via the eRA Commons streamlined process. To do this, Login to the eRA Commons, identify the parent award, and prepare an administrative supplement request.  A user’s guide for this system is available at http://era.nih.gov/commons/user_guide.cfm. This contains a very helpful step-by-step description of what to do, with screen shots.
   
   
4. NINDS will now provide up to $10,000 direct cost per program for administrative costs. PIs may put this toward their own salary, effort for an administrative assistant, or other typically allowable costs.
   
   
5. Starting with the October 2012 receipt date, NINDS will provide up to two full years of support for participants who complete 1) at least 6months of support during residency and 2) an additional 12 months of support in a subsequent year. Thus, participants can achieve up to 24 months of support by obtaining 6 months of support during a 3rd fiscal year. A gap in research effort is allowed between the first 6 months of support and the 2nd period of research support (i.e. fellowship) if additional full time clinical training is required. However, an additional 6 months of support in a 3rd fiscal year must occur contiguously with the 2nd period of support. Similar to other support years, an administrative supplement request will be required for this additional 6 months of support.

General

1. The fundamental information requested this year is essentially unchanged from previous years, except for what is needed to accommodate electronic submission and a few record keeping items.
   
   
2. Supplement requests can only be submitted by the PI of the R25. However, there are portions that should be prepared by the proposed participant (resident or fellow) and portions that should be prepared by the proposed mentor (see below).
   
   
3. Applicants may request support for as many residents/fellows as they wish.  However, the written portions of the application prepared by the proposed participant and mentor should provide confidence that the combination of participant, project, career development plan and mentor commitment will result in the participant transitioning in a timely manner to individual NIH research funding, or equivalent.
   
   
4. The following financial support is allowed:
   1. Participant salary plus fringe for 80% effort for a duration of 6-12 months
   2. Up to $2000 per participant for participant travel to meetings or workshops
   3. Up to $10,000 for administrative costs per R25 (PI salary, effort for an administrative assistant, etc.)
   4. Total direct cost not to exceed $70,000 per participant plus $10,000 per R25 for administrative costs.
      
      
5. Funds should only be requested for participants to be supported between July 2013 and June 2014.
   
   
6. The fundamental text of the supplement application (statements from R25 PI, research/training descriptions from the candidate participants, letter from the mentors, etc.; see details below and in FOA) can be provided in a single pdf uploaded as an attachment into the supplement request. Please put all information for an individual participant together (in essence, you are concatenating complete individual text packages for each participant into a single pdf document)
   
   
7. You will need to include form information that is required in the electronic supplement application.
   
   
8. The Funding Opportunity Announcement for the electronic submission is PA-12-100.

Specific instructions:

1. In the budget justification, please list: the name of each individual participant for which support is requested, the participant’s specialty (neurology, neurosurgery, etc.), the participant’s email address, whether the request for each participant is for new funding or a continuation of funding and the cost for each participant.
2. For each participant, include a 3 page (maximum) description of the research education and research plan (written by the proposed participant and signed by both the proposed participant and the proposed mentor). This should include a research project title.
3. For each participant, include a letter of support, written by the proposed mentor, which describes the mentoring plan for this participant. The mentor should provide a plan by which the participant will become ready to submit an application for an NIH Career Development (K) award or equivalent. (We anticipate this can be done in 0.75 – 2 pages)
4. Include a biosketch for each participant. The participant’s biosketch should list ALL peer-reviewed, original research publications, with PMCID (or PMID if PMCID not available).
5. Include a biosketch for each proposed mentor.
6. If the request is to continue support for a participant who was previously supported during residency, include a brief description of any progress made during the residency year. We understand that, depending on when the participant started, there may have been little or no progress made at the time of supplement submission. If this is the case, please state this and provide the dates during which the initial support was to be provided.
7. If the request is to continue support for a participant who was previously supported during residency, the PI should confirm that the proposed participant was supported for at least 6 months during residency by this research education program, and that during this period of support, the resident devoted 80% effort to the R25 research education program.
8. If the proposed participant will be doing research involving animal or human subjects, documentation must be provided that the proposed research experience has been approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or human subjects Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the grantee institution. Adherence to the NIH policy for including women and minorities in clinical studies must also be insured if additional human subjects’ involvement is planned for the supplement component. It would be best to provide this information with the supplement application. However, this information will be required before an award can be made.

These supplement requests will be reviewed in the Fall of 2012, go to Council in February, 2013, with funding start dates in the Spring of 2013.