NOTES:
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Is there a specific reason that this needs to be hosted on Github? No. There's no code in here, but Dropbox was giving me trouble and can often times be inaccessible to people without accounts. Github seemed to me to be a means of making this publicly accessible while allowing me to update as needed and maintain version control pretty easily.
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Any private or sensitive information contained within these documents (user IDs, addresses, signatures, etc.) has been removed for security concerns. If you see some section in which it looks like I forgot to include one of those things, it's probably because I removed it so use your best judgement.
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If this repository helped or helps you to succesfully receive an NIH F99/K00 grant and you'd be willing to share your materials to help others, please let me know! I'd be happy to incorporate them to provide other examples of routes to a successful application.
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Lastly, the conventions and templates are changing not infrequently, so please consult with and trust official NIH resources (which this is not) when working on any of these documents moreso than anything I say. The purpose of this repository is to give people a starting point and reduce uncertainty about some of the unofficial or subjective aspects of the process (e.g., "How long do I have to wait to hear back?", "Will I have enough time to turn around a resubmission if I don't get it the first time?", "How can I frame this tangetially related experience?", etc.)
This directory contains almost all, if not all, of the documents related to my application to the NIH DSPAN award, which provides up to two years of predoctoral funding and four years of postdoctoral funding to eligible applicants (i.e., people who meet the NIH definition of being from a diverse background; see the funding announcement). I specifically met eligibility criteria 3 through 7 under condition C and so my application carries with it that specific perspective, which might be something to keep in mind if your eligibility is granted by meeting different criteria.
I applied twice: December 2022 and April 2023. My first submission was not discussed (i.e., did not receive an impact score) but my second submission received an impact score of 30 and was funded. The DSPAN does not give percentile scores like the NIH F31, so it can be hard to determine your likelihood of getting funded, but you can look at the current paylines, or ballpark probability of funding, by impact score for the F99 grant at this link. The external deadlines were December 15th and April 15th; though, I had to have all materials completed for internal deadlines by the 08th of any given submission month. (Please note it appears the NIH is changing the deadlines as of 2024; they are now in March and October and only occur twice a year, instead of three times a year as they use to). Our grant specialist handled most of this and submitted it through the NIH Commons portal. Here, you can see your application as well as any updates on the status of it. Reach out to your internal grant specialist early, at least a month in advance to your submission, so that they can find you more information on forms, internal deadlines, getting an NIH commons account, etc.; all of which take a lot longer than you think they would. For example, I nearly missed the first deadline because, although I was positive I had an NIH Commons account, the username I thought I registered with was associated with someone at the University of Indiana and it was a massive debacle to clear that up. This is true of any grant and not just this one, but give yourself and the folks helping you plenty of time for hiccups like this.
This section may help you plan when to expect certain stages or events in the process to occur and to prepare for what may come next.
The first submission was submitted December 15th, 2022. The study section met to discuss this submission on Februrary 13th, 2023 and I received my summary statement, which includes detailed feedback on every section, from that section on March 07th, 2023. Because it was not discussed, there was no advisory council meeting. I had between March 07th and April 08th to incorporate that study section feedback into my resubmission. I made some substantial changes to my advisory team, recommender team, and study design in that time. My next application was submitted April 15th, 2023. The study section for that submission met on June 05th. I received my impact score June 10th and my summary statement on July 09th. I then received an email from the Program Officer, Michelle, Jones-London, on July 11th asking me to respond to the feedback in a three page letter by July 21st. The advisory council met sometime in August (which was not disclosed to me) and I learned via email on August 18th that the project was funded. During all of that time I did have two or three meetings with Michelle and Lauren Ulrich to discuss my application and get some more insight into parts of the application or feedback that confused me.
NEW: On May 20th, 2024, I received a notification from era-notify@mail.nih.gov that my first Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) would be due July 20th, 2024. I was somewhat confused because Temple had deferred my funding start date to January 2024, so it had not even been a full year yet. However, these are determined by budget periods and are due two months from the start of a new one, which is September 20th, 2024. I received a reminder of this on June 20th as well. Our internal grants specialist reached out to me on July 2nd to also inform me and let me know that this must be reviewed internally before being submitted and the deadline for that was actually July 16th. I was able to assemble all of the responses and materials in a little under two days to meet that deadline.
I have the contents of this directory split into a few subdirectories:
Assistance contains NIH-generated forms, guides, and information that I thought would be relevant to my application. Some of this may be outdated and I would check the NIH website for the most up-to-date versions of these things, but I thought including them to show what I was looking at while I was working on this could be helpful. I have an image of the F31 guidelines for document length, which are almost identical to this application, just for quick reference. I also have the Funding Announcement and a list of tips for building an application. There are three dense guides on completing career, fellowship, and general forms that are less helpful and I can't quite remember whether I actually used them at all.
Once the application was accepted, I recevied an email from Pamela L Mayer at the NIH on September 7th requesting information regarding: 1) Whether I would accept the award, 2) what NRSA funding my sponsors and I have received, 3) who my sponsors are, 4) my home address, phone number, and citizenship status, 5) IRB information, and 6) responses to each of the critiques that my application received. I was not informed of a deadline, but it seems like, informally, I only had a week to complete it, as I started getting emails asking for it to be submitted ASAP 2 business days after I received the first email. If you get to this stage, keep in mind that they want this quickly. Information related to this request is contained within this directory.
This is entirely supplemental. It contains a few powerpoints that I presented on the contents of the application. It is likely worthless to you, but if you find yourself wondering about the context of the research strategy, they could possibly provide some of that.
This is only relevant if you receive grant funding. Approximately one year after you are funded, you will need to complete an Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR). This is completed almost entirely through the Commons webportal, but I have saved my responses as .docx files, which are available here. This was a fairly straightforward process and much of what you need to complete is outlined within this NIH RPPR guide. A few things of note:
- This RPPR does require a statement from your sponsors, which I had originally missed, so be sure to let them know ahead of time and account for that in your timeline;
- Some questions make direct reference to components that you had previously submitted in your DSPAN packet, such as your RCR training and specific aims. In these cases, I found it easiest to actually open the original document, use that structure, and make updates relevant to what I had accomplished.
- The RPPR included many more questions, many of which did not apply to my grant. These questions may apply to you. Even though I don't have them in this directory, scan through your specific RPPR to see which questions the NIH says apply to you.
- Some questions use dialogue box responses and others expect you to upload a .pdf. I have .pdf versions of the latter included in this directory.
If you have not yet been funded through a DSPAN, it might be advisable to take a quick look through this directory to note the types of things that the NIH wants to monitor. This stage would have been far simpler had I been keeping track in anticipation of having to complete the RPPR since I started, but I learned about the RPPR when I got that first notice.
Contains the actual summary statements that I'd received from reviewers, which I think could maybe be enlightening as to what reviewers are generally going to be looking for, what they don't like to see, and perhaps how you can improve upon or address those concerns with later submissions, should it come to that.
Again, unlikely to be the thing you're looking for here, but these were my materials that I had submitted the first time around. What I think is likely valuable here are the Letter of Intent, which you should send out roughly a month before you plan to submit (check the website, there is a formal deadline for this), the initial Cover Letter, which looks very different than the Version_2 cover letter, and some of the 99_ prefixed materials, which you need to complete on your first submission. Reach out to your itnernal grant specialist for more information on how to complete these forms. This also does contain a subdirectory called figures. The ActivitiesPlanner.pptx document might be of some interest for your timeline document. NOTE: I've hidden sponsor statements and biosketches to maintain their privacy. I may add them in the future providing all parties consent, but if you'd like information or advice about those, please let me know.
All of the materials that I submitted that got funded. Each item is a separate .docx file and affixed with a prefix denoting the general order in which the documents should be organized. Again, the Cover Letter here is slightly different because it addresses criticisms of the original submission. I beleive I was past the Letter of Intent deadline at this point, so I did not submit one. You may notice that the 29Mitchell_DataManageSharePlan.docx doesn't have a predecessor in Version_1. It's a new form that the NIH asks participants for. NOTE: I've hidden sponsor statements and biosketches to maintain their privacy. I may add them in the future providing all parties consent, but if you'd like information or advice about those, please let me know.
If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out at billy.mitchell@temple.edu. I'm happy to give some more advice or feedback. Also, I have to give a lot of thanks to Haroon Popal who massively helped me in preparing this application by letting me take a look at all of his materials.