Clap Clap
If you're writing a challenge grant, cla....
Okay, okay. I'll stop.
So, how many of you spent part of the afternoon reading the behemoth of an RFA? I think I received the email announcement from at least 4 different sources, and it got forwarded to me at least another 3 times.
This comes at a rather inopportune time for my lab. Our PI is away at the moment and will not be back probably till the end of the month. I have been left in charge as substitute PI, and there are 4 members of the lab including me who are eligible by our institution's rules to submit NIH grant proposals. We know we're expected to help write these grants, but it's not clear whether we are going to be PIs, co-PIs or ghost-writers.
It's also not clear how many we are expected to submit. I mean, let's face it--every PI in this country is going to submit as many as possible, and any PI with faculty-level lab members is going to ask them to submit additional ones. How the hell are all these grants going to be peer-reviewed in two months??? Will all PIs be dragged away from their labs this summer and sequestered until they've scored all gazillion challenge grants?
And speaking of inopportune times, March Hare and I are going to Las Vegas for a week later this month. We planned this trip last November...before we knew about Dormouse's condition, before I knew my PI was going to be MIA this month, and definitely before I knew I was going to be writing X grants for an April deadline.
So I guess I'll be keeping tabs on the lab by email and working on challenge grants in Las Vegas.
Sigh....
At least I won't be gambling away what remains of our investment portfolio playing blackjack, right?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
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13 comments:
Yeah, I got about 3 different notifications of it too, even though (obviously) non-domestic institutions can't apply. (Although I did make myself check, just in case).
Good luck... and push for co-PIship at the very least.
Four notifications here, and yeah, I'm applying. I just today submitted an R01, which matches pretty closely to one of their themes, and I think it can be mafe to work as a two-year jobbie.
There will be a ton a of applications, but I would bet that the reviewers will be able to throw away at least 3/4 on a cursory glance. That's still going to leave a lot of applications, though.
Yuck, working vacations. Hopefully it results in some funding. Good luck!
That really sucks. Especially the vacation part. Ick.
A similar thing happened in my neck of the science woods a couple of years ago. A big call came and it took forever to learn the outcome. So many people submitted proposals that there were hardly any reviewers available without a conflict of interest.
Cath--Hey, at least this means you won't be frantically writing 20 of these in the next month! Co-PIship would be a good thing for me given my position, but some of the other people who are looking for their own tenure-track positions have concerns about whether they would be able to take part of the money with them if they move to a different institution, and if not, whether it's worth it to be co-PI on a challenge grant only to not get all the money and lose their ESI status for their R01 submissions.
Iayork--Hey, good luck with your R01. It's great that you'll be able to modify an existing grant to match one of these topics. How would that work in terms of overlap if both are funded?
SM--Thanks! I may piss and moan about it for the next month, but if I do get funded, it will totally be worth it!
EGF--Hmm...I hadn't even thought about the conflict of interest issue. In this case, though, I think the NIH has to spend the money (or at least it has to be encumbered) within a certain time period, so the review process really can't be allowed to drag on. It'll be interesting to see what happens....
My advisor actually brought this up in lab meeting today. I heard the buzz around the department, and later got an announcement (I'm a 2nd year, I have no idea what they were thinking forwarding to me).
She announced we will not be applying, but it seems as though everyone else I know is. Dr Boss also mentioned the number of applicants vs those funded will probably be quite small.
I was a little disappointed in the structure they decided upon, though it is understandable given the time commitment for approval. I was thinking they would divide it up into smaller chunks to "spread the wealth" a little more.
Good luck with the challenge grant writing! I'm not writing one (I think)and am quite relieved. End of April is a tight deadline!
Best luck in getting through it all... something's always keeping you busy, eh? =)
you still have remains in your investment portfolio?
Science Bear--Yeah, the odds of getting one of the challenge grants definitely are low. But then the odds of getting an R01 these days aren't so good either! When I first heard about them, it sounded like they would be in smaller chunks--250K a year instead of 500K. But even if they will fund twice as many grants, I imagine that number will still be dwarfed by the sheer avalanche of applications.
Bean-mom--I keep thinking to myself, "If I just make it past this, I can take a moment to breathe." And as soon as I make it past whatever "this" was, something new pops up. Ah well...life would be too boring otherwise, right? :-)
Jennie--Not sure whether to laugh or cry at what's left in my portfolio!
Despite looking at the announcement, I'm definitely not writing one! I am in a typically non-nih field and already have to write an nrsa for august...yikes!
Do you have one of those sun screens for your laptop so you can work by the pool in Vegas?
Albatross--Good luck with your NRSA. And that laptop sun screen idea? Absolutely brilliant! :-)
I'm writing two of them.
So it's Comrade PP now? Good luck with your grants!
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