1 Comments
From time to time we need to update our application forms to maintain consistency with Grants.gov and Office of Management and Budget federal-wide requirements, and to incorporate changes in NIH policies and processes. NIH issued a Guide notice on April 27, announcing how we are gearing up for a transition from the current forms (“FORMS-D”) to the next iteration of forms for due dates on or after January 25, 2018. Highlights of the new FORMS-E will include:
- Consolidation of human subjects, inclusion enrollment, and clinical trial information previously collected across multiple agency forms
- Expansion and use of discrete form fields for clinical trial information to
- provide the level of information needed for peer review;
- lead applicants through clinical trial information collection requirements;
- present key information to reviewers and agency staff in a consistent format; and
- align with ClinicalTrials.gov (where possible) and position us for future data exchange with ClinicalTrials.gov
- Incorporation of recent Grants.gov changes to R&R Budget and SBIR/STTR Information forms
We will begin posting funding opportunities with the new FORMS-E packages in October. Read the NIH Guide Notice for more information: NOT-OD-17-062 – New NIH “FORMS-E” Grant Application Forms and Instructions Coming for Due Dates On or After January 25, 2018
We, members of the scientific community , would like to know how the NIH arrived to the conclusion that research dollars do not equal scientific productivity. First , please be totally transparent and tell us how you define scientific productivity. Is a paper that describes the outcome of a six month investigation by a single investigator equal to a paper that sums up the work of a large team that had worked together for three years? Second, where is the evidence that very senior investigators whose laboratories have been making major research breakthroughs , developing new technologies and experimental systems and provide training to scores of postdoc a and graduate students , do not provide a bigger or at least equal return on the public investment in biomedical research. Third, if there are well funded investigators out there with minimal scientific productivity , whose fault is it for continuing to fund them? It’s the NIH fault! But this does not justify a witch hunt and a crusade against so called well funded senior investigators who take scarce research dollars away form young investigators , who in many cases have trained in those big , so called unproductive labs. In the same token , we need to be informed in a totally transparent manner , about the research productivity of the intramural program. As someone who had reviewed the NIH intramural program I can testify that there is a lot of waste at the NIH , especially when it comes to non productive and mediocre mid level investigators , who would not have survived in the extramural world. Why not go after them? Finally , you proposed system of outing numbers on grants given to individual investigators is draconian and totally unfair. What about HHMI investigators who already have a million or two from HHMI . Why should they be allowed to obtain a single or even two R01 grants under your new proposal? I hope that you post this this response and will let the public discuss it. It is not up to the NIH administration to decide what to do with our tax dollars.