SPONSORED PROJECTS

NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant Program

Key Deadlines: January 27, 2012 (Internal Letter of Intent); March 21, 2012 (proposal due to sponsor).

The purpose of this funding opportunity is to continue the competitive National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) Shared Instrumentation Grant (SIG) Program. The objective of the program is to make available to institutions expensive research instruments that can only be justified on a shared-use basis and that are needed for NIH-supported projects in basic, translational or clinical areas. The SIG program provides funds to purchase or upgrade a single item of expensive, specialized, commercially available instrumentation or an integrated instrument system. An integrated instrument system is one in which the components, when used in conjunction with one another, perform a function that no single component could provide. The components must be dedicated to the system and not used independently. Increase in productivity or efficiency is not sufficient justification for an integrated system. Instruments must be for research purposes only. Foreign made equipment is allowable.

This program is designed to provide for the acquisition or updating of expensive shared-use instrumentation not generally available through other NIH mechanisms, such as the regular research project, program project, or center grant programs. Applications for research on advancing the design or for the development of new instrumentation are not appropriate for this FOA.

Types of instrumentation supported include, but are not limited to, nuclear magnetic resonance systems, electron and confocal microscopes, mass spectrometers, protein and DNA sequencers, biosensors, x-ray diffractometers and cell sorters. Applications for "stand alone" computer systems (supercomputers, computer clusters and storage systems) will only be considered if the instrument is solely dedicated to the research needs of a broad community of NIH-supported investigators.

Number of Applications Allowed: One per type of equipment.

Proposal Web Site: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-12-017.html

Detailed information regarding eligibility can be found at: Section III. 3. Additional Information on Eligibility.

Submission Process:

A Two-Page Letter of Intent that addresses the following criteria:

1. State the application's broad, long-term objectives and specific aims, making reference to the health relatedness of the project.
2. Identify a major user group of three or more investigators who are Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) on active NIH research grants with the following activity codes, P01, R01, U01, R35, R37, DPI and DP2 must be identified. To demonstrate the clear need for the requested instrumentation, the projects supported by NIH research grants should together require at least 75 percent with the major user group accounts for at least 35 percent -of the total usage time.
3. Identify a Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) who can assume administrative/scientific oversight responsibility for the instrumentation requested. This person need not be an NIH grantee but must be affiliated with the applicant institution and registered on the eRA Commons.

Deadlines:

University Contact:

Please contact Dr. Suzanne Rivera in the Office of Research Administration at suzanne.rivera@case.edu if you have questions about the process.