Are there significant changes from last year to the competition process?
Yes, unlike the previous year, the 2009 competition will proceed in two formal stages, with two separate Funding Opportunity Announcements. The first stage is a pre-application stage. The pre-application must be submitted in response to PAR-09-013, which uses the X02 pre-application mechanism. The pre-applications will be assessed by a group of external reviewers. Only those investigators whose proposals are judged to be the most outstanding will be notified of the opportunity to submit full (DP2 applications) under RFA-RM-09-003. The full application represents the second stage of the process.
Yes, unlike the previous year, the 2009 competition will proceed in two formal stages, with two separate Funding Opportunity Announcements. The first stage is a pre-application stage. The pre-application must be submitted in response to PAR-09-012, which uses the X02 pre-application mechanism. The pre-applications will be assessed by a group of external reviewers. Only those investigators whose proposals are judged to be the most outstanding will be notified of the opportunity to submit full (DP1) applications under RFA-RM-09-001 and will be invited to NIH for interviews. The full application represents the second stage of the process. Another significant feature is that reference letters will not be required by all submitting proposals for the Pioneer Awards, but only by those proceeding to the second stage.
Yes, please read the instructions in the RFA carefully. Unlike the 2009 competition, the 2010 competition will not require a pre-application (X02). Additionally, applicants are responsible for reviewing and/or updating their degree information in their eRA Commons account in a timely fashion to ensure they are correctly identified as an early stage investigator (refer to NIH Notice http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-021.html). There are other minor changes to the submission instructions, so please read the RFA carefully.
