NIDA Diversity Scholars Network Program Pre-Application Webinar – 2025

Video length: 42.26

Transcript

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Hello, and good morning, afternoon, depending on where you're located. Thank you so much for joining the NIDA Diversity Scholars Network Pre-Application Webinar. 

My name is Isabela Ellenwood, and I'm a program analyst in the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Office of Research Training Diversity and Disparities. This webinar is being hosted by myself and Dr. Aria Crump, the Deputy Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Office of Research Training, Diversity and Disparities. 

We would like to give everybody a very warm welcome. Before we begin, I'll be sharing some friendly reminders with you all. All webinar attendees are muted and may submit questions at any time through the Zoom webinar question and answer feature, but will not be able to unmute or come on camera. 

Dr. Crump and I will be answering questions at the end of the webinar, and any questions that do not get answered live will be answered through a FAQs document that will be available on the NIDA NDSN website. The slides from this webinar are already available on our website, and the recording will be visible within 10 days of this session on our website. To begin, I'd like to introduce you all to Dr. Wilson Compton, who will be providing some welcome remarks. Dr. Compton is the Deputy Director of NIDA and the Director of the Office of Research Training Diversity and Disparities or as we call ourselves, ORTDD. Dr. 

Compton's responsibilities include working with the NIDA director to provide scientific leadership in the development, implementation, and management of NIDA's research portfolio in order to improve the prevention and treatment of drug use and addiction. He also recently received the Health and Human Services Secretary's Award for Meritorious Service in 2024. I'm now super excited to share and pass the mic over to Dr. Wilson Compton for introductions.

[Wilson Compton]

Thank you very much, Isabela. 

It's certainly a pleasure to welcome everyone on behalf of the National Institute on Drug Abuse to our meeting focused on the NIDA Diversity Scholars Network. This is a standout program that we're very proud to have supported now for a number of years. 

I highlight the fact that it is a successful and very important program based on a scientific publication from about 15 months ago that documented that participants in our diversity scholars network have a significant likelihood of obtaining NIH support within the first year or two years after their participation in this program. 

Now, what does that mean? We know that it's so important to bring a variety of perspectives to bear on scientific questions and to make sure that the science that NIH supports will have the maximum impact on the overall US population depends on having a workforce that represents a broad variety of views and backgrounds. 

That's where the NIDA Diversity Scholars Network comes in. At some universities and some settings, there is a very robust network and process for helping people develop what sometimes is a half-formed or an interesting idea but isn't ready for being submitted as a research application to the NIH or to foundations or to other sources. 

Those universities put people through a rigorous process of working with their idea, developing it into a full proposal, submitting it to internal review or sometimes even external review prior to submission. 

Well, guess what? Not every institution has that capability. Not every one of our scientists has that ability to have a network of mentors and advisors and readers to help strengthen their application before they submit it. That's what the NDSN or the NIDA Diversity Scholars Network is all about, is to taking your best ideas and helping you turn those important scientific questions and ideas into a proposal that will be as rigorous and as strong as possible so that it has a better opportunity and a better chance of surviving the rigors of peer review and the funding process. 

I am so pleased that our team has been successful in working with now many dozens of potential and actual applicants and successful grantees to the NIH over the last number of years. We want you to be successful the next round. 

Please learn from this webinar about how to participate in our NIDA Diversity Scholars Network and to submit your best ideas so that we can work with you to see to it that they are successful in your applications to the National Institutes of Health for support. I am so glad that our addiction science field has this particular initiative and this particular program available, and I look forward to working with each one of you as we work to enhance the diversity of our scientific workforce so we can do a better job in addressing the major concerns that face the US public when it comes to addiction and addiction science. 

Now with that introduction, let me turn it back to Isabela Ellenwood, who will lead us through the rest of this introductory webinar.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thank you so much, Wilson. That was a wonderful introduction. 

Next, I'll be sharing an overview of the topics that will be discussed during today's webinar. We'll begin with a discussion about NIH and NIDA. We'll next talk about the purpose and structure of the NDSN program. We'll learn how to apply in the selection process. Then we'll talk about how you will know that you're ready to apply some NIH funding basics, and then we'll end with a Q&A session. 

Now we'll get started with some background about NIH. NIH is the largest source of funding for medical research in the world with a budget of about 47.3 billion in 2024. The NIH funds thousands of scientists at universities and research institutions in every state across the US and around the globe. In addition, NIH has various research campuses which houses its intramural, basic, and clinical research programs. 

These are a few pictures from its largest campus just outside of the Washington, DC area in Bethesda, Maryland. NIDA is one of 27 different institutes that make up the NIH, and NIDA's mission is really focused on understanding the causes of drug use and addiction and how to apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health. 

Our mission required us to embrace very diverse areas of science. NIDA supports basic, clinical, and epidemiological research on drug use, its consequences, and the underlying neurobiological, behavioral and social mechanisms involved. NIDA is committed to advancing all aspects of addiction science from basic to translational clinical and health services research in the service of enhancing fundamental knowledge and improving people's lives. With that in mind, we encourage everyone to look at our 2022 through 2026 NIDA strategic plan, which is located on our NIDA website. 

This slide illustrates the cross-cutting priority research areas for NIDA. In the center of this framework are the cross-cutting priorities that are particularly of interest to NIDA. As you can see, these include research training, stigma, sex, and gender differences, health disparities, comorbidities, etc. 

The outer circles articulate how NIDA will advance research across its portfolio to build fundamental knowledge and address the evolving addiction and overdose crisis. We want to share these resources with you and make sure that you know how you can learn more about NIDA. 

There's, of course, the strategic plan that we just discussed, but there's also all of these different web pages that we want to refer you to. We publish a newsletter, feel free to subscribe to that, and we have a QR code here that provides a quick snapshot to our ORTDD programs. Next, I'm going to discuss the purpose and structure of the NDSN program. 

The goal of the NDSN program is to enhance the funding success of early-stage investigators from diverse backgrounds. The program provides workshops, coaching, and other resources to scholars to assist them with developing a competitive grant application to submit to NIH. A major highlight of the program is the mock review session that takes place at the end of the year and able to discuss that a little bit more later today. 

This slide illustrates the data behind the lack of diversity in many STEM fields. As you can see at the undergraduate career stage, there is the most diversity among students. As you go further along in career stages, you can see a significant drop. Programs such as the NDSN program aim to help fill this gap, particularly by increasing diversity at the early-stage investigator level. 

This graph on this slide was taken from a recent publication mentioned by Dr. Wilson Compton that is in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology on the NDSN program written by Dr. Albert Avila and several of his colleagues. The data shows that of 59 participants from 2016 through 2021, a little over half received funding within the first two years of completing the program, and 69% were funded by four years out, which is very promising and a true testament to the success of the program. 

The NIDA NDSN program aims to equip scholars with the necessary tools, information and resources to navigate the competitive NIH grant process. This slide shows the three parts of the NDSN program that take place throughout the program year. 

The Part I meeting is virtual and consists of presentations, including demystifying the NIH grant process, fundamentals of grant writing, and it also includes meeting oneon- one with your NIDA program official and coach. 

The Part II meeting, which is also virtual, includes opportunities for collaborating and networking among current scholars, as well as meeting with past program participants and other investigators and hearing from other NIH staff on topics like the peer review process. 

The Part III meeting, which is a two-day workshop, and it is in person here in the Bethesda area includes two days. The first day includes a mock review meeting, and scholars are able to be a fly on the wall and actually listen to the grant application they've worked on all year, be reviewed by experienced NIDA study section reviewers. 

On Day 2, there's a debrief with those reviewers, as well as additional professional career development talks. NIDA does provide reimbursement for travel and lodging for all scholars that do come and participate in this meeting. You're probably wondering what all happens through the year and what the dates are. 

This slide here really shows what you can expect. This year, we are really excited to share that NIDA launched a new electronic NDSN application, which is now live and available to you. It can be found on our NIDA NDSN website. Applications are due by January 31, 2025. Participants will be notified of their acceptance by late February 2025. 

Upon accepting the invitation to pee in this year's program, you're agreeing to participate in all three meetings. 

The Part I meeting, which takes place on March 21st of 2025, the Part II meeting, which takes place June 6th of 2025, and then the two-day meeting that takes place September 4th and 5th in North Bethesda, Maryland. 

Please also note that the first draft of your grant application is due to NIDA by April 28th, 2025, and the final version of your grant, which will be used in the mock review is due to NIDA by July 28, 2025. Next, we'll discuss the application information and how the selection process works. 

To be eligible for NDSN, at the time of submitting your application, you must be a doctoral-level investigator and within 10 years of receiving your terminal degree. You must also have at least two full years of research experience after receiving your terminal degree, at least two published or in-press first-author papers within the last three years and no prior NIH research or career development awards. 

The applicant should also be planning to submit a grant application to NIDA upon completing the program. US citizens or permanent residency status is also required. If you have any questions about your eligibility, you're welcome to contact us at the email address listed here ndsn@nih.gov. 

If you're interested in applying, which we hope you all are, you can find the application on our website. It'll require a candidate statement, a specific aims page, abbreviated research strategy, curriculum vitae, including publications and an ORCHID ID. What do you include in your candidate statement? Well, it should not exceed two pages and should describe your background, expertise in training, your career plans, why you're applying to be an NDSN scholar, and how your research relates to the NIDA strategic plan. 

You're welcome but not required to also share information about your previous research and scholarship achievements, your contributions to the field, any diversity equity inclusion, accessibility, or DEIA-related activities you have been involved with, any factors that might have affected your productivity, and how your research goals and background aligned with NIH's interest in diversity. 

An internal committee at NIDA will select from 12-15 scholars to participate in the program. Decisions will be based on the overall strength of the candidate, whether the candidate is well positioned to submit a competitive research application and the priority of the research project proposed to NIDA.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Next, we're going to have Dr. Crump discuss how you know you're ready to apply and I'm going to now turn the mic over to her.

[Aria Crump]

Great, thank you so much, Isabela. 

It's wonderful to have everyone as a part of the webinar today. I'm going to jump right into whether you are ready to apply.

The first thing to keep in mind is that we really need scholars who have an institutional affiliation so that they're able to actually submit the grant. For example, if you're an adjunct and you don't have privileges with a particular institution to submit, then you're not quite the person who's the best fit for this opportunity. 

A scholar should have adequate time to commit to developing a complete grant application over the course of the time that the program runs, as Isabela has just described, because that application, which is going to be submitted in late July is going to be reviewed by selected reviewers who will actually hold the mock review, who will participate in the mock review that you'll get to watch. If you can't actually complete the application, it doesn't really work well for the program. Scholars are expected to fully participate in all aspects of the program. 

It's probably not quite your time if you're thinking that, this seems like a bit much to pull together in this particular amount of time, or you may have conflicts with the dates that we've provided. You want to feel confident about the work that you're proposing. It's very common to want to be involved in so many different areas that interest you, but really, this particular program requires you to focus and really put your energy into this one particular area. Part of the reason for that is because we're connecting you with a coach. 

We're connecting you with a program official who has this particular expertise. It's really important to have that commitment at this stage. Then you want to have identified at least one possible career development funding opportunity announcement or research funding opportunity announcement. That question has already come through in the Q&A. Yes, if you're working on a K award, you can absolutely apply for NDSN. One thing is we really want you to reach out to a PO before participating in the program. 

The nice thing about doing that is whether or not you're selected for the program, you've already made that connection with a PO, but the other piece of it is you're well on your way to developing your application earlier in the process if you make that outreach now. Next slide is, how do you contact a PO? Before you submit, you would always want to contact a PO, even if you're not engaging in NDSN. The PO is wonderful for helping you to understand whether your research proposal is a fit with a particular grant opportunity and whether it fits the mission of NIDA and NIDA's priorities. A lot of times grant applications may fall under NIDA's purview, but not necessarily be something that's going to compete well with other priorities. 

That may affect funding. It's really helpful to be able to talk to a PO about that. There's a link here for understanding staff roles to learn more about that and these slides are available to you on the NDSN website. How do you go about selecting a PO? First off, there are multiple ways to do it. One way is to, once you've identified that funding opportunity announcement, Section 7 of Part 2 on every announcement is always going to have agency contacts and there'll be scientific contacts. The PO who works with NIDA would be the scientific contact for that opportunity, and that person can help to refer you if they're not the right person to talk to about your science. 

The second option is my favorite and that is using the Matchmaker tool. This is a function that's a part of the NIH reporter. If you click on that link for the Matchmaker tool, you can drop in some text that drop your abstract in or even just some keywords. 

Then you can click on a matching POs in order to see what program officials actually are currently monitoring work that's in that area and then you can reach out to them directly. Another way to try to find a PO match is to go to the institute website and open up the division links which are on the slide deck. Notice that once you open up those links, you can see program officials. You can see who the program staff are and learn about them and try to see who's a good match with the work that you're doing. 

The fourth option is to put together an AIMS page or a concept paper and send it to nida_training@nida.nih.gov. We have staff who will follow up with you and help you to make that connection. Funding basics, I wanted to take a moment to just give you some basics for those individuals who are not as familiar with how NIH really works and really want to understand coming in on the ground level just to make sure we all have the same information on NIH. NIH, as a lot of federal agencies do, uses a lot of acronyms. 

Just to get you started, NOFO is notice of funding opportunity, NOSI, notice of special interest, RFA, requests for applications, and PA, program announcement. The thing to keep in mind is that whenever an application is submitted, it's submitted by an institution on behalf of a PI or multiple PIs. The PI has to pick an appropriate announcement, which is a RFA request for applications or a PA, program announcement in order to request review and consideration for funding. 

RFAs and PAs are collectively known as NOFOs and then there's a link here if you want more information about NOFOs. If you're applying for a grant, you have to identify the NOFO and there is a formula of sorts, you could call it for what a NOFO identifier looks like. 

It starts with RFA or PA or PAR or PAS. It'll often have the name of the institute indicated by DA or MH or something like that and then the year and then an identifier. The NOFO title is going to tell you, once you open up that link for the NOFO, it'll tell you what types of grants can be submitted to that NOFO. 

You have to take a look at whether or not you are conducting work that is identified by NIH as a clinical trial and the link that's on this slide will help you understand whether your work is a clinical trial or not. Because there's a different NOFO number depending on whether you're submitting a grant that's a clinical trial or not a clinical trial. Now some of them will be clinical trial optional, but you have to make sure that if you're submitting a clinical trial, that it's allowable under the NOFO. 

NIH institutes use NOSIs to describe a specific area of research where they're interested in receiving applications, but a NOSI is not what you're applying to as an applicant. You're applying to the notice of funding opportunity. I wanted to give a little bit of background on different types of awards. Career development awards come in different varieties. One thing to know about career development awards is that different institutes participate in different announcements. 

These are intended for investigators who are in early phases of their research. They give you some protected time so that you can establish your research agenda and really establish yourself as an investigator. They provide funds for skills development and mentorship and you have to have oversight, typically of a mentorship team, but absolutely a primary mentor must be identified. NIDA supports five different career development opportunities that are mentored career development awards. 

Notice, I'm mentioning mentored here, there are also salary career development awards as well. Those folks are not eligible for NDSN because they would already have grant support if they have a salary career development award. The mentored awards we support are the general one, the clinical science one, the patient oriented one, the quantitative research award, and the Pathway to Independence Award, or the K99/R00. 

I didn't say it, but on the last slide, there's a link for learning more about career development awards. There are also as you may know multiple different R awards, which are research project awards. I'm going to run through several of them. One is the R01. This is the most commonly used award. It lets you propose a discrete clear research project and it has a lot of flexibility around the dollar amount and around topic. You have to have advanced permission if you're going to request an award for $500,000 or more in direct costs. 

These are generally 3-5 years. NIH publishes what's called apparent R01 NOFO and the reason for that is that gives the investigator full autonomy to say, I want to propose this study. It falls within an institute's mission, but it doesn't have to be defined by that institute's NOFO. It's a parent R01 NOFO. R01s, you have to keep in mind, typically are expected to have preliminary data. 

If you read the announcement carefully, which is critical whenever you're applying for a grant. You'll see whether or not that's required. Budgets for R01s do not have to be large, but if it is large, you have to make sure that you're providing justification that the personnel are able to successfully manage that grant. 

The other thing is to keep in mind that because R01s are really a sign of success in advancing your career because it's considered a major reward, NIH has taken some steps to make it easier for earlier career investigators to achieve this goal. One of the things is whenever they are reviewed, typically, they're going to be in study section separately reviewed from established R01 applications. That way, investigators are able to focus on the fact that this individual is not as far along in their career. 

Let me just take a moment to talk about R01 funding for new investigators. A new investigator, as defined by NIH, is an applicant who has not successfully competed for a significant NIH independent award. That doesn't include independent awards from other agencies. An early investigator is an individual who's a new investigator who's within 10 years of the terminal doctoral degree or the end of their formal clinical training. If you want more information about new investigators, you can go to the link on the website. 

You should know that under the 21st century Cures Act of 2016, NIH is required to develop policies to promote funding for earlier research independence. We're required to encourage successful early stage investigators to advance in a way that supports diversity. We're also required to create a sustainable workforce across all career stages. 

What that means is we're paying attention to the fact that earlier career investigators have a tough time. It's incredibly competitive at that stage. NIH is funding R01s to ESIs more favorably. It's important to know.

[Aria Crump]

What are some other opportunities if you're not quite there for the RO1? Say you don't have the preliminary data or say your goal is really a little bit different. Maybe it's more exploratory and developmental. There are other opportunities that you can consider. One is the R21 Award. This can be used for pilot and feasibility studies and it allows up to two years of funding. 

The combined budget for the two years is limited to $275,000 in direct costs. Typically, you don't need preliminary data for this type of award. Note that there is a parent R21, just like there's a parent RO1. Importantly, being awarded an R21 does not disqualify you from new investigator or ESI status so that you can be considered for an individual mentored career award even after receiving an R21. But it also does not disqualify you from being considered ESI once you apply for a RO1. Another option is the small grant program or the RO3. 

These are typically smaller direct costs are generally up to $50,000 and therefore a really short circumscribed project, for example, like a secondary analysis or something that's very small or self-contained. These are not renewable, so you can't continue them after your time is up, after your two years is up. NIH publishes a parent RO3, and being awarded an RO3 also does not disqualify you from new investigator status. 

It's important to know that NIDA publishes special RO3s that are particularly designed to stimulate research in areas that are of importance to the institute. So there's one for HIV research, called the A-START, one for behavioral research called the B-START. One for imaging research called the I-START and one for data science research called the D-START. 

I'll take a moment to note that the D-START actually has set aside funds that the institute has allocated because this is such a priority for us. Note that sometimes RO3 can have a higher direct cost limit, as with the D-START which has a $100,000 direct cost limit instead of $50,000. Another option is the R34 NIH planning grant. 

These grants are designed for the development of a clinical trial or research project in the earlier stages. These are projects limited to three years with a total direct cost limit of $450,000 over the three-year project period. These are also not renewable, meaning once that three years is up, you can't put in a competing application to do another one that's on the same topic. For clinical trials, the R34 allows you to put together all the elements that you're going to need for a successful RO one application. Let's say you need measures development or you need to do some early proof of concept testing or something like that. 

This particular award will allow you to do that. Now, there's no parent R34 notice that's published by NIH. You have to go to NIDAs website and look for and I'll talk to you about how to do this, look for what does NIDA do with the R34? Because you can't just go to the general parent announcement. Also, as the R21 and RO3, the R34 is not considered a major award and it doesn't disqualify you from getting a career development award as we were just discussing. It's really important to read the guidance for the R34 to make sure that your application is responsive as there is no parent announcement. So there are other funding announcements. I've covered the big ones for us. But there's also the Directors Pioneer Award or New Innovator Award or the R16 Research Excellence Award. 

There are a lot of there are other mechanisms that you can learn more about. It's really helpful to talk to a PO to learn more about these mechanisms. I just wanted to take a moment to say that we typically are not using the DP1 where we're not accepting folks who are applying to DP1s and DP2s for NDSN as that particular mechanism is reviewed very differently from the other Rs. It's really not a good fit for this opportunity. You'll notice also that every NOFO will have only one mechanism in its title. So whenever you have a different number, it's going to be a specific mechanism. 

When I say mechanism, I'm talking about RO1, RO3, R21. The POs are a great first stop to talk about, hey, is this mechanism a good one for me? Should I be thinking about an R16 as opposed to a R21 or a PO? Is a wonderful resource for those types of questions and they can help you make sure that your research and career development needs are aligned with the mechanism or NOFO that you're selecting. How do you find these announcements? The NIH Guide for grants and contracts is a one-stop shop for all NIH published funding announcements. You can go to the website, which is linked on this slide, and you can actually plop in there into the search. Click on Advanced Search and plop in there an activity code. Let's say you know you're interested in the patient oriented career Development Award. You can put that mechanism in under activity code, you can put in an institute under funding organization and do a search, and you can see what opportunities there are. This is a wonderful tool that I highly recommend. 

You can also subscribe to the guide and as new opportunities are released, you'll get them in your email. The other reason to be subscribe to the guide is this is where NIH publishes all of its policy notices, as well. Whenever there's a policy that affects grants, it's going to be published in the guide. This particular slide has a wealth of resources that applicants should be aware of. One, the grants.gov website has been totally revised. The NIH Central Resource for Grants and Funding has been totally revised to be very user-friendly and accessible. 

Strongly recommend taking a look at that if you need to. There's a walk-through for beginners about the grants process. There's an all about grants podcast series. There's the NIH Extramural Nexus, which is a newsletter which gives you updates on what's going on with NIH funding. There's the Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools site, which is NIH Report. If you click on that, you can also get to the NIH reporter, which allows you to search. What have we already funded? As an applicant, you don't want to put in an application for something that an institute has already funded, someone to do. That lets you see not only what has been funded and supported before they publish on it, but it also lets you see who you might want to collaborate with or who you might want to work with on your work. 

Then finally, the last link is the NIH Center for Scientific Review. This is another wonderful site. The Center for Scientific Review is responsible for a large proportion of the grant reviews for all of the NIH institutes, not all of them, but a large proportion and all the information that you need really about reviews, almost all can be found on that website. I wanted to just take a moment. I hope that this information that we've shared has been really helpful for you if you're someone who's relatively new to the grants process, but I definitely want to take a moment to advertise NIH grant process primer. That's coming up in about a week or so, a little bit over a week. It's a two day event where you can learn you can sign up for another webinar and learn about what is the NIH grant process from award to application. 

Please do take advantage of that opportunity. At this point, I think we're going to move on to the Q&A session
and I think Isabela is going to join me as we jump into the questions.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thanks, Aria. Thank you so much for sharing all that very useful information. So we have been getting questions as the presentation has gone on and we've answered quite a few of them in the question-and-answer function. But there are some that are still awaiting a response, so I'm going to go ahead and read them aloud and Aria and myself will answer them. The first question is, is this intended for people applying for K awards? I'm working with a wonderful ESI who I would like to support on my RO1 with a diversity supplement. Would this program apply to them?

[Aria Crump]

Great question. For the NDSN, we're really absolutely interested in supporting folks who want to apply for the K award. It's definitely for individuals putting into NIH specifically to NIDA individual awards not necessarily a diversity supplement. I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding the question.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

The other way I interpret it was it's someone that might be on their grant with a diversity supplement and then might want to later on apply for the NDSNP program, and that would be someone that would be a good fit, I think, for the DSN program.

[Aria Crump]

Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Sure.

[Aria Crump]

Yes. Please do reach out to us if you would like to get more clarification on that question, but absolutely.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Next question I see is would institutional affiliations also include corporations or for profit organizations.

[Aria Crump]

That's a great question, too. You always look to the funding opportunity announcement. Typically, it's going to tell you, and I'll call the wrong section, but it's definitely part two. I think it's probably Section 3, I believe, it tells you what the eligible organizations are. So you will always go by that whether or not you are able to apply for any funding opportunity announcement.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Very helpful information. The next one I see is if I've applied for an NIH, UG3, UH3 mechanism, am I eligible for NDSN?

[Aria Crump]

The question is your application that you want to create for the peer review process for the MOC review, is a UG3, UH3 application is that eligible? Great question. I say, absolutely, put it through. That's going to have the only reason the DP1 and DP2 are disqualified is they're so different in terms of what the application looks like and what the review process looks like that it really is not giving you a true a metric of what your process would be.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thank you. Are there any diversity opportunities for those who are not currently affiliated with the university? Are there any cases where an affiliation can be established outside of a teaching or research commitment?

[Aria Crump]

Got it. For individuals who are scholars who are on their way toward submitting independent NIH awards and becoming funded scientists, there are absolutely other opportunities. This particular one, the NDSN does not work for that, but what I would strongly recommend is not too long ago, probably about two weeks ago, we held a webinar on the diversity supplement program and that webinar information is on our website as well. Please feel free to reach out to us to get more information on that.

[Aria Crump]

I think that's a wonderful opportunity for the situation you're describing.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thank you. The next question is, can you explain broadly the difference between a diversity supplement and an NDSN award?

[Aria Crump]

Sure. That's a good one. A diversity supplement really is not an award for an individual scholar that directly is linked, I should say, to an individual scholar. I really misstated in saying that. Let me correct that and say, the diversity supplement award is made to an existing active NIH grant. It's not in the name of the scholar. 

The diversity supplement is really in the name of the mentor who is submitting the award to mentor and train and support a scholar. The NDSN is really for folks who are more advanced more often than the diversity supplement in their progression. For NDSN, we're looking for folks who are at institutions in independent roles, ready to submit an application. You could be a postdoc. It's very possible that you're a postdoc, but you would not be any earlier along in your progression. But the key is that you're ready to actually write a grant and submit a grant on your own under your own identifiers and connected to your particular lab. That's a different location, I would say, in the progression of a scientist. I hope that was clear. 

The issue is diversity supplement typically is going to give you up to two years of time to work directly with a mentor to develop your skills. The NDSN is really not doing any of that. The NDSN is saying, if you're ready to apply for an NIH grant, but you need a little bit more support to help you understand how NIH works and help you be successful in the process of submitting your own grant award, this is for you. The other thing. The last thing I'll say about that is it really does require you to have a project that's ready for prime time. What I mean by that is if you're in a diversity supplement mode, you're really still developing your skills, you're developing your interests. You're not really independent. You're much more independent as an NDSN applicant. Isabela, do you want to add anything to that? Do you think I covered that well enough?

[Isabela Ellenwood]

I think you covered that really well, Aria. Thank you. So another question came in. When considering applications, how much weight is placed on the strength of the candidate versus the strength of the grant proposal?

[Aria Crump]

Great question. We have review our criteria for selection that Isabela covered. I like to think that we're looking at this holistically. We're looking for folks who are ready to be successful. We're looking at the grant application in terms of, is it something that looks like it's in good shape? It can be developed over the next six months or so? We're looking at whether or not it's science that's going to be high priority science for NIDA. 

It's going to be exciting science for NIDA. But we're also looking at the person. We care that you're someone who is meeting the goals of the program. We are serious about our commitment to our charge under the 21st Century Cures Act. We're supposed to be helping folks get to independent research career status earlier, and we're supposed to be diversifying the workforce. It's really a holistic assessment based on a lot of factors.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thank you. Should I intend to submit my proposal only to NIDA or is submitting to other NIH agencies acceptable?

[Aria Crump]

Great question. When you submit to an application for NDSN, you're going to be indicating how it is aligned with NIDA's strategic plan. The thing to keep in mind is that if your work is really more aligned with a different institute, it's not going to be a high priority for us to select you into the program. We have 12 slots, and we get a lot of interest. Sadly, as much as we want to see everybody succeed, we have to focus on supporting the NIDA science.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

How do I find a NIDA PO?

[Aria Crump]

Great question. My favorite strategy is using the NIH reporter matchmaker tool. That's something if you go back, you can look at the oh, we just dropped it in the chat. Thank you so much. Yohansa Fernández has been helping us out here. Thank you so much for your help. If you go to that tool, again, you can drop in keywords or you can drop in a whole abstract. I'll basically allow you to do a search to see what POs work in this area. It may be that they're not even NIDA specific. But let's face it, if this is the area, this is the research you're doing, you want to talk to a PO that's in the area that you're working in. That's my number one tip.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

It seems like the questions have stopped coming in, but I could give folks another few seconds to see if any more come through. I don't see any more coming through. We have one that came in. Can we discuss a bit more about what a university affiliation means exactly. Apart from teaching or being a professor, what other affiliations exist?

[Aria Crump]

Got it. I'm glad you asked that question. The main issue is, do you have a status at your university that allows you to submit an award for the period of time that you plan to submit the award. If you're a post doc and you're trying to put in a K99, you need to have enough. Do you have the time? Will your institution allow that submission? If your whatever scientist designation you have, does your institution allow you to submit under that role. There are a lot of different roles at research institutions, and we're aware of that. The key is that you need to be someplace where you can submit because applications are not submitted by PIs. They're submitted by institutions. The key here is that you really can't ask NIH for research money unless you're doing it through an institution. I hope that clarifies.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thanks, Aria. If your application is not funded, do you still receive feedback?

[Aria Crump]

Unfortunately, well, two things. First off, it's not about an application being funded or not funded. For NDSN, and please do clarify the question if I'm misunderstanding it. For NDSN, you're putting in an application to participate in the program. You're saying that you're ready to submit an application to NIH and you're committing to participate in these three sessions and to participate in the mock review, come to Maryland and be a fly on the wall as applica. That's what you're committing to if you're selected. It's the question that I think you might be asking is, if you are not selected for NDSN, will you get feedback as to why? The honest response is, unfortunately, if our experience this year is anything like our experience last year, we don't have the bandwidth to provide that type of feedback to everyone. That said, we're hoping that's exactly why we're doing what we're doing right now. We're hoping that this webinar is going to help you learn some basics and connect with a PO because if you don't get into NDSN and you want to be in it, at the very least you should know that you can get a lot of this information from connecting with a PO and building your networks with your mentors. We're just giving you an extra little boost.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thank you, Aria. Is the timeline of the workshop aligned with usual NIH grant deadlines?

[Aria Crump]

Great question. We have the mock review the first week of September. Typically, the cycle of submissions for NIH starts early October. It all depends on what your mechanism is and what your funding opportunity announcement is, what the submission date will be. If you're submitting an R01, typically, there's a parent R01 date that's going to open up beginning of October. If you're doing a K, there's a K date that's going to be open middle of October. The timing is intentional so that you could potentially go right into submission. But if you have an AIDS application, it's going to be a totally different date. It totally depends on the announcement you're applying to.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thank you. If I'm understanding correctly, NDSN is looking for early career scientists primarily working on R01 versus K awards. Are there other programs that prioritize K awards?

[Aria Crump]

Great question, again. We are open to folks who want to submit Rs of different ilks. It can be R01, it can be R21, R03. That's a part of why I was going through all the different types of mechanisms. It can be an R16, and we're interested in folks who are applying for Ks. You can be submitting a K01, K25, any of those mechanisms that we talked about. The only ones that I mentioned that we are not really working with are the DP1 and DP2. I just wanted to clarify that.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thank you. Will NDSN program help a lead PI or co-PI for a multi PI grant application?

[Aria Crump]

Will NDSN help a lead... Interesting question. I hadn't thought about that one before. The truth is we are working with one person who's being accepted into the program. If you happen to be an MPI or be planning an MPI application, you can indicate that and say that, but we're only working with one person as a participant in the program. Any further questions about that, please do reach out to us, and we're happy to discuss it.

[Isabela Ellenwood]

Thanks, Aria. That is going to be all we have time for today for the Q&A session and the questions did slow down so that worked out. I'm going to now turn the mic over to Aria to close the session.

[Aria Crump]

Great. Thank you so much, Isabela. Thank you to everyone who attended today. I hope that this was informational for you. I think that the most important thing I'd like for everyone to leave with is that NIH is a major supporter of biomedical research, and NIDA has a very important mission to support science that's going to help us improve health problems related to substance use and addiction. We are passionate about supporting our early career investigators and to advancing their opportunities to be successful. 

We want you to reach out to us if you would like to learn more about NDSN or if you're just interested in learning more about NIDA, quite honestly. We are very interested in working with and supporting our early career investigators. Thank you all for your attention, and we hope you have a fabulous day.