NINR Funding Guidelines:

Non-Competing Continuation Grants:
The NIH will fund research grants at the most recently committed levels. Non-competing awards previously issued in FY 2009 at reduced levels will be revised to restore funds to the level indicated above. 

New, Competing Renewal, and Competing Supplement Grants:
The success rate for NINR is estimated to be approximately 21% in FY 2009. Council and program staff may selectively recommend the payment of grants out of priority score order based on Institute mission and priorities and to maintain a diverse and balanced portfolio. NINR will also place special emphasis on new investigators, first competing renewals of new investigators, and competing renewals of established investigators with insufficient other support.

We realize that the increasingly high overall average cost of NINR grants is largely attributable to the high percentage of clinical studies. NINR may make adjustments to R01 grants to maintain the average cost of competing RPGs at the FY 2008 level. On average, this may result in a 10% decrease from Initial Review Group (IRG) recommended levels of requested direct costs.

Large Grants:
Research applications that exceed $350,000 in direct costs and are scored at the 25th percentile or better will be taken to the National Advisory Council for Nursing Research for special consideration of the high budget.

NIH requires pre-approval for applications requesting direct costs of $500,000 or more in any year. The program director whose area of science incorporates the application should receive at least the following as part of the process to evaluate proposed high budget applications:

• The cover page
• Abstract of the proposal
• All of the budget pages and budget justification
• Specific aims

Additional information on this NIH policy may be found at:

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-02-004.html

NIH Financial Policy for Grant Awards - FY 2009 may be found at:

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-066.html

NIH Extramural Financial Operations Website may be found at:

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/financial/index.htm