NIH is committed to improving the participation of all people in our small business research SBIR & STTR programs. One of the goals of the SBIR and STTR programs is to encourage participation in innovation and entrepreneurship by socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses (SDB) and women-owned small businesses (WOSB) …. NIH has issued a request for information (NOT-OD-17-008) to better understand the barriers that prevent SBIR/STTR awardees from participating in the existing diversity supplement program, and to inform its consideration of developing a new diversity supplement ….

NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR) will host three different “online briefings” on peer review for: fellowship grant applicants; R01 applicants; and researchers who are proposing and/or reviewing basic science applications. ….

As we turn the corner toward the end of the fiscal year, we’d like to remind research institution officials to review whether your awarded grants are accurately assigned to the correct department /school within eRA Commons. This ensures that the grants are reported correctly in tools like RePORT for year-end reporting, and displayed under the right division/school in eRA Commons. On October 13, data for the government’s fiscal year will be frozen, …..

The pursuit of academic research career can be a challenge, especially when faced with high levels of student loan debt. The escalating costs of advanced education and training are forcing some scientists to abandon their research careers for higher-paying private industry or private practice careers. In exchange for a commitment to conduct biomedical or behavioral research, the NIH will repay up to $70,000 of student loan debt (over two years) per two-year contract through the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs).

If you are a qualified health professional who agrees to engage in NIH mission-relevant research for at least 20 hours per week at a nonprofit institution, you may be eligible to apply to the one of the five extramural LRPs: …..

Beginning with the January 25, 2017 application due date, NIH will change what post-submission materials are allowable, and will eliminate most appendix materials currently allowed in applications. ….

If you are planning to submit a fellowship application for the August 8th due date, be sure to note the following changes that come with the FORMS-D application packages, and the advice highlighted in July’s NIH eSubmission Items of Interest: Among the changes are the addition of several new attachments: …..

The forms in our FORMS-D application packages labeled “R&R” or “Research & Related” list an expiration of June 30, 2016 and the Project/Performance Site Location form is due to expire on September 30th. As described in a recent NIH Guide notice (NOT-OD-16-120) and an NIH eSubmission Items of Interest article, there’s no need to panic. For now, keep using the forms we post with our funding opportunity announcements …..

The xTRACT module, accessible via eRA Commons, helps applicants and grantees create training data tables for institutional training grant applications and progress reports (RPPRs). xTRACT can save investigators and administrators time preparing training table information, and provides grantees and NIH with training table data in a way that can be reused for future submissions and will be more readily available for analysis. Using Commons IDs and xTrain appointment data, xTRACT prepopulates the tables from data we already have ….

We’ve added the option for you have all NIH Extramural Nexus posts, including Open Mike blog posts, to be delivered straight to your email, as soon as they come out. On our “subscribe” page, we’ve added information in the sidebar for subscribing to real-time email delivery. You can also continue receiving these posts in a once-a-month email digest, or use one of our RSS feeds in your feed reader of choice. Additionally, you now have the option to be notified about followup comments ….

Individual Mentored Career Development award applicants, take note! Primary mentors named in your application must have eRA Commons usernames for a successful electronic submission of you application. For more information, read NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-16-082.