Important Update: NIH Amends Process for Submitting Late Application Materials

The NIH is busy revising and updating policies to conform with the shortened, restructured applications that went into effect January 25, 2010.  Under the new guidelines, when you have additional application documents to submit after your grant deadline, but before the initial peer review, those documents may have page limitations and they must be submitted via your Research Grants & Contracts analyst (or in NIH-speak, the Authorized Organizational Representative (NOT-OD-10-070). This is different from how you may be used to submitting additional documents. In the past, investigators  “cc’d” their RGC analyst when submitting additional application documents to the Scientific Review Officer. But now,  updated or revised documents must be sent directly from the Authorized Organizational Representative (RGC analyst) to the NIH.

Supplemental documents also have new page limits. They must conform to the page limitations for the particular opportunity to which you are applying. Budget updates,  biosketches, and other form-related materials should follow their respective guidelines. But if you are submitting materials that are not submitted via an approved NIH form, there are new page limits:

If the Research Strategy section of the application is limited to 12 pages, additional materials must be limited to two printed pages. (example: Parent R01)

If the Research Strategy section of the application is limited to fewer than 12 pages, additional materials must be limited to one printed page. (example: R21)

If the Research Strategy section of the application is allowed greater than 12 pages, additional materials must be limited to three printed pages. (example: R25)

If the application has subprojects or cores, the page limits for additional materials follow the page limit of the Research Strategy of each subproject or core, as indicated above.