The Foundation has issued guidance on NSF’s implementation of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum (M-20-20), entitled, Repurposing Existing Federal Financial Assistance Programs and Awards to Support the Emergency Response to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). NSF remains committed to working with the Administration, other federal agencies, and the research community to effectively respond to the COVID-19 national emergency. This guidance is to implement the flexibility class exception authorized by OMB Memorandum M-20-20 that allows Federal awarding agencies to repurpose their Federal assistance awards (in whole or part) to support the COVID-19 response, as consistent with applicable laws. This will certainly help address questions that recipients may have regarding the donation of items/resources from NSF awards.
Any questions about the policies described in the NSF Guidance should be directed to policy@nsf.gov. Questions specific to a particular award should be directed to the cognizant NSF Program Officer. NSF is working to update existing FAQs and other resources to reflect NSF’s new guidance and will keep you informed on our website at: nsf.gov/coronavirus.
Just a reminder that eRA is planning a
major undertaking this month, to migrate its modules and data to the Amazon Web
Services (AWS) cloud April 17-20 (Fri-Mon).
During this cloud migration, from 8 am ET on Friday, April 17 to 8 pm ET on Monday, April 20, all eRA modules (eRA Commons, ASSIST, IAR, iEdison, etc.) and all informational websites (era.nih.gov, etc.) will be unavailable.
Any affected due dates will be covered under NIH’s late application policy due to COVID-19, which allows all applications submitted late for due dates between March 9, 2020, and May 1, 2020, to be accepted through May 1, 2020.
Grants.gov will
continue processing applications during the migration window.
Applications received via Grants.gov will be put in a queue, and then eRA will
process them on Monday night, April 20. The standard 2-day viewing window for
successfully submitted applications will be applied.
Note that eRA will be closely monitoring the availability of staff needed to do the migration; please check the eRA Cloud Migration webpage of the eRA website for confirmation of its plans late next week.
Cloud computing provides us with a number
of advantages. These include improved security, reliability, and scalability of
the system.
As you can imagine, NIH is devoting
significant resources to COVID-19. In addition to dedicating regularly appropriated
funds, to date NIH has received emergency funding for COVID-19-related
activities in two supplemental bills (available from the NIH Office of Budget website), that together provide:
$1.532 billion for NIAID
$103.4 million for NHLBI
$60 million for NIBIB
$36 million for NCATS
$30 million for the NIH Office of Director
$10 million for NIEHS
$10 million for NLM
To get funding as quickly as possible to the research community, we are using Urgent and Emergency competing revisions and administrative supplements to existing grant awards. This approach allows us to leverage resident expertise, getting additional funding to those researchers who are already working with other organisms, models, or tools so that they can quickly shift focus to the novel coronavirus. These Urgent and Emergency competitive revision Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) allow NIH to fund applications quickly, often in under three months, sometimes much quicker than that, because evaluation for scientific and technical merit is done by an internal review panel convened by staff of the NIH awarding institute or center rather than by our traditional peer review process.
The Urgent and Emergency competing revision FOAs sound very similar. And
they are, but there is an important distinction.
The Emergency Competitive Revision FOA can only be used for funding available for applications based on a presidentially declared disaster under the Stafford Act, a public health emergency declared by the Secretary, HHS, or other local, regional or national disaster. This means that for COVID-19 funding, it can only be used by those NIH Institutes and Centers I listed above that received special emergency funding.
The Urgent Competitive Revision FOA can be used to meet immediate needs to help address a specific public health crisis in a timely manner. This vehicle is used to help address a specific public health crisis that was unforeseen when the application or progress report was submitted.
When
responding to these types of funding opportunities, it is important that you
understand how they work.
You need to read the instructions in the NOSI and in the FOA it points to carefully. If the instructions in the NOSI differ from those in the FOA, follow those in the NOSI.
There are specific review criteria specified in the FOA. Make sure you address those as well as any that might be mentioned in the NOSI. They are how NIH staff will evaluate your application for funding.
The NOSI will instruct you to include the NOSI number in the Agency Routing Identifier field (Box 4b) of the SF424 (R&R) Form. This information is very important for NIH tracking of spending of emergency award funding. Applications without this information in Box 4b may not be considered for this type of funding.
Often the due dates are rolling, meaning you should submit the application as soon as it is ready to get it considered for funding as quickly as possible.
An overview of information for NIH applicants and recipients related to COVID-19 (available in PowerPoint and Word document formats)
Many new and updated FAQs on foreign components, animal welfare, continuous submission, timing of reference letters, salaries, donating PPE, prior approval, contracts, and training, fellowship and career development awards. A listing of specific FAQ changes can be found on our page update history.
We know it can be a challenge to track new information as it becomes available. We are noting changes to the website in the page update history, tweeting from @NIHgrants as things get posted, and we will continue to highlight new resources in the Nexus.
A Note From Sharon Milgram, PhD, Director of NIH OITE
While we all want to be highly productive during this period of self-quarantine, the reality for us and for our trainees and research staff may be very different. We are stressed, they are stressed, and all of us are dealing with unique issues that impact our ability to be productive at this time.
My mission, as the director of NIH’s Office of Intramural Training and Education (OITE), is to help trainees (summer interns, postbacs, grad students, and postdocs) in the NIH Intramural Research Program develop career and professional skills that will help them succeed on all career paths in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. My concern goes beyond just thinking about trainees in NIH’s intramural program. Just last week, I had the honor to talk with the NIH Director, Dr. Francis Collins, about NIH trainees. Parts of our discussion focus on NIH’s intramural program, but his message of hope and NIH’s concern for trainees is universal. I also spoke last week with grad and postdoc office leadership across the US to share concerns and strategies.
Since the advent of social distancing a few weeks ago, all of us have had to work through policy issues, help trainees work through their stress, and identify ways to continue to support their learning while not in the lab. For me in my position, and I am sure for many of you, this has also meant needing to rise to the challenge and adapt programming to meet trainee needs.
Tomorrow
my office is hosting a workshop on Supporting Yourself and Your Trainees
During the Coronavirus Pandemic that is open to all. In this workshop we will provide
PIs, program leaders and research group heads with insights and strategies for
supporting themselves, their trainees and staff during this difficult time.
In addition, we are putting together a panel discussion with mental health experts to help the directors of postbac, graduate student and postdoc offices best support trainees during these uncertain times. The panel discussion will be taped and the discussion will address questions submitted in advance. You can submit questions for the panelists in advance here. The panel discussion will be taped on Friday April 17, 2020 and uploaded for viewing by April 21st. We will plan follow up discussions based on feedback from the community once this resource is disseminated.
We have been working quickly to develop a robust program of virtual workshops we are scheduling each week. We hope your students and postdocs will join us. We will be putting on new programming each week. They can find information by visiting the OITE website of Virtual NIH Activities for Trainees Outside the NIH, and on Twitter @NIH_OITE and @SHARONMILGRAM. After the workshops, the videos will be closed-captioned and posted as quickly as possible on the NIH OITE YouTube Channel for later viewing.
Also, if you wish
to join us and your students in the NIH OITE weekly wellness challenge, follow
us on Twitter @NIH_OITE and @SHARONMILGRAM. I am trying to post wellness tips
daily in addition to updates on our programs.
Right now our
trainees need our support more than ever. Working together we can support them
though this difficult time.
