Funding-NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant
Program and Required Information for Letter of Institutional Commitment; February 11, 2014
The NIH Office
of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) supports the Shared Instrumentation
Grant program for major research equipment costing between $100,000 and
$600,000. ORIP intends to commit
approximately $40 million in FY2015 to fund approximately 80 new awards. The
NIH deadline is March 21, 2014.
Complete Program Announcement: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-14-073.html
Management
Plan: The application
must include a specific financial plan for long-term operation and
maintenance of the instrument and details on how the costs to place the
instrument in operational order as well as the maintenance, support personnel,
and service costs associated with effective use of the instrument will be met.
The financial plan MUST include a table for year one of operation with
approximate dollars for anticipated expenditures and anticipated income showing
how these estimates were derived. Also required is a description of the projected
financial plan changes over the subsequent four years: operation; maintenance;
supplies and specific dollar anticipated income.
Institutional
Commitment: The application must describe the
institutional infrastructure available to support the instrumentation and
confirm that the institution will commit to provide backup of the financial
plan for five years from installation of the equipment or for the effective
lifetime of the instrument. The PD/PI, upon recommendations and approval of the
local Advisory Committee, may request permission from the NIH for any future
changes to this commitment due to unforeseen alterations in the use of the
instrument (i.e., transfer of title to another institution, trade-in towards a
more advanced instrument, etc.). The review panel will evaluate the time of
institutional support of the financial plan for this instrument in terms of
consistency with the expected usable lifetime for the instrument dependent upon
the type of instrument requested.
Letters of Support: Letters
from institutional officials (mentioned in Institutional Commitment) and
letters from the biosafety committee (mentioned in Equipment) should be
combined in a single file named Letters of Support and uploaded as a separate
attachment via Other Attachments. In particular, the institution must provide
an official letter of support that includes an explicit commitment to provide
backup for the proposed financial plan. Specifically, the letter must state
that if the financial plan should fall short of its projected income, the
institution will commit funds to replace the shortfall and maintain operation
of the instrument. Applications without an institutional commitment to support
a shortfall in the financial plan will not be accepted for review. The institution
must also provide a Letter of Support that includes a table that provides
information about instrument performance of all previous S10 awards for
instruments awarded or installed within the past five years. The table should
include: S10 grant number, year of award, PD/PI’s name, generic name of
instrument, current instrument status (i.e., in use, traded-in, transferred,
non-functional), approximate hours used per year, status of maintenance
agreement, and number of publications citing the S10 award. If the instrument
is currently non-functional, the institution must provide a supplementary
explanatory text.
Researchers
interested in submitting a proposal to the Shared Instrumentation Grant program
are asked to submit the following information electronically to the Office
of the Vice President for Research at limitedsubmissions@uky.edu and a copy to their
Associate Dean for Research by Tuesday, February 11, 2014:
· Name and department
of PI
· Instrument requested
and approximate cost
· Proposed user group
(a minimum of 3 NIH-funded investigators are required)
· A description of the
instrument capabilities/uses, and a one page narrative of how the instrument
addresses current institutional research priorities and will extend UK’s
capabilities to facilitate additional NIH-funded research
· If the instrument is
intended to be part of an existing service core (recharge center), identify
which one; if a new recharge center is being proposed, provide the proposed
name, location, and include a letter of support from the relevant Dean
· NIH prefers locating
the instrument in a centralized core facility whenever possible; however, if
the instrument is not intended to be part of a service core, delineate the
departmental/center/institute and college plans for instrument support in terms
of personnel and service costs and include a letter of support from the
relevant Dean
Because of the financial commitment for
multiple years of institutional support, the Vice President for Research will
appoint a committee to review and recommend those proposals best aligned with
institutional research priorities.
Questions
about the submission process may be sent to Ms. Kathy Stanwix-Hay in the Office
of the Vice President for Research (stanwix@email.uky.edu
or 257-5090). To identify potential NIH-funded investigators, researchers may
contact the Proposal Development Office (PDO@uky.edu) or search SPIFi, the database of UK funded projects (http://www.research.uky.edu/ospa/info/spifi.html).