Deadline policy.  In order to be maximally effective, the Office for Nursing Research follows a table of deadlines that is used to guide the preparation of new grant applications.

All grants are due to the Division of Sponsored Programs (DSP) 5 business days before the final, sponsor’s deadline. This rule is university‐wide and nonnegotiable: https://research.uiowa.edu/dsp/late-routing-policy [1]

The deadline for submitting proposals to the ONR occurs in two phases:

1. Fifteen business days before the sponsor’s deadline:  All supporting materials (e.g., budget and justification, resources, letters of support, biosketches, and appendices). Submitting these pieces early will allow a significant amount of the document uploading to take place ahead of time and minimize the likelihood that a last-minute technology failure or electronic bottleneck due to high internet traffic will prevent a grant from being submitted.

2. Ten business days before the sponsor’s deadline:  The research narrative of the grant (i.e., Research Plan: Specific Aims, Research Strategy, and other pieces detailed below).

Priority for Submission.  Given the reduced lead time that results from changing the deadlines, there is less leeway for late submissions. Priority for submission will be given to those who meet the deadlines. If a proposal comes in late, it will be sent to the back of the queue and it may not be submitted.

Holidays.  When a deadline falls on a Saturday (e.g., June 5), most sponsors automatically extend the deadline to the next business day.

Quality Control.  Grants that are submitted prematurely reflect poorly on the CON as a whole. If the ONR feels a proposal is not sufficiently complete to be a viable submission, the Associate Dean for Research may ask a PI to delay submission to the next cycle of applications.

Beginning April 20, 2012, applications receiving an impact score of 40 or less will receive a standard notice and request from NIH for submitting JIT information. See http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-12-101.html [2]

When an NIH grant application on which a CON faculty member is a Senior/Key Person (not Consultant or Other Significant Contributor) receives a JIT request, the ONR may assist in collecting Other Support information for their active and pending research by:

• Providing an Other Support template and examples to be completed and sent to the study PI for submission to NIH.

• Helping identify annual direct costs received/pending from  funding source(s), whether Federal, non-Federal, commercial or institutional, available in direct support of an individual's research endeavors, including but not limited to research grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, and/or institutional awards.

• Noting effort devoted to each project measured in person months, i.e. calendar, academic, and/or summer months.

All supporting materials in final format are to be in the ONR office no later than fifteen (15) business days before the sponsor’s deadline.  Prior to this deadline, the ONR staff will assist as outlined below.

Biographical Sketches:

• Collection and review of biosketches for each key person and consultant in the Principal Investigator’s (PI) grant application after PI has made initial contact with them.
• Conversion of CV or resume to acceptable NIH biosketch (2010 short format).
• Upload biosketches into the grant application.
• Maintain electronic copy of each biosketch submitted with a grant application.
• Maintain electronic copy of master NIH formatted biosketch with all prior Personal Statements, Positions & Honors, Publications and Research Support (ongoing projects and those completed in the past three years).  This master biosketch will be returned for updating purposes with each new grant application.

Letters of Support:

• Collection and review of letters of support for consultants and other significant person/entities in the PI’s grant application after PI has made initial contact with them.  Word files rather than pdf files are preferred.
• Obtain permission from author of letter to change the letter date when grant submission has been delayed.
• Upload letters into the grant application
• Maintain electronic copy of each letter of support submitted with a grant application.

Letters of Reference:

• Collection and review of letters of reference for referees after the applicant for an F or K series award has made initial contact with them.
• Upload each letter of reference directly to the eRA commons for the candidate.

Maintain electronic copy of each letter of reference submitted with a grant application.

Eligibility.  Only grant applications seeking $150,000 or more in direct costs to sponsors that also provide F&A costs will be eligible. PI’s must be CON faculty members or postdocs. Note:  External reviewers cannot be a current member of the panel that will review the proposal.

Honoraria.  $250 will be paid to external reviewers who provide a written critique of a draft proposal prior to its submission. $350 will be paid to external reviewers who provide a written critique and are present for the peer review session by phone.

Limits.  Only one external reviewer is permitted for each proposal.

Format.  Peer reviews will be scheduled no later than 5 weeks before the sponsor’s deadline. A peer review session takes 2 hours and is attended by the PI, 2-3 reviewers, and the ONR Director. The PI may also wish to have collaborators attend. The session is recorded using SmartPen technology so that both written comments and an audio recording of the entire session can be made available to the PI.

Procedure.  Beginning 10 weeks before the sponsor’s deadline, PI’s should email the ONR Director to request an external review.  In the email, the PI should provide relevant information about the proposal, including:

• PI’s name and area
• Working proposal title
• Prospective sponsor
• The PA or RFA number
• Sponsor’s due date
• Total amount of direct costs to be requested

9 weeks prior to Proposal Due Date.  The PI provides the ONR with the Name and Contact Information of the prospective reviewer (institution, department, mailing address, phone number and email). At this point, the PI will also forward the current draft of the 1-page Specific Aims to the ONR Director.

8 weeks prior to Proposal Due Date.  If the Specific Aims are judged to be in reviewable condition, the request for review will be approved and the ONR will begin the process of contacting the reviewer and soliciting a commitment to read the proposal. Please note that the expert cannot be a current member of the panel that will review the proposal.

The ONR will contact the prospective reviewer. If the External Reviewer agrees to review the full proposal, the ONR will then obtain needed information for honorarium payments.

                6 weeks prior to Proposal Due Date.  Faculty member provides a full draft proposal (electronic) to the ONR Director. If the proposal draft is judged to be reviewable condition, it will be sent to all reviewers (internal and external). Appropriate institutional paperwork for honorarium payment must be obtained by this date.

5 weeks prior to Proposal Due Date.  Peer review is held (with or without presence of External Reviewer). External reviewer must return critique to faculty member (and copy to the ONR).  Honorarium check is then mailed.

Assignment of reviewers.  The ONR Director helps to identify potential reviewers and coordinates scheduling of the review.

Lead time for review materials.  PI’s must send their proposal draft to the ONR Director at least 1 week before the scheduled date of the review. PI’s who do not provide their reviewers with sufficient lead time to review the materials, the review session may be canceled or rescheduled.