Central review of internal LOIs will be limited to ensuring that the applications do not duplicate other equipment requested. Applicants must work with their school or college dean to ensure that all financial aspects of the application are approved before submission. Each school or college dean has the right to deny any application submission that does not have an appropriate financial plan in place. Applicants are strongly encouraged to begin discussions with their Associate Dean for Research before submitting an internal LOI.
The purpose of this funding opportunity is to continue the High-End Instrumentation (HEI) Grant Program administered by ORIP. 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 of biomedical/behavioral research. The HEI Program provides funds to purchase or upgrade a single item of expensive, specialized, commercially available instrument or an integrated instrumentation system. An integrated instrumentation 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.
Types of supported instruments include, but are not limited to: X-ray diffractometers, mass and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, DNA and protein sequencers, biosensors, electron and light microscopes, cell sorters, and biomedical imagers. Applications for "stand alone" computer systems (supercomputers, computer clusters and data storage systems) will only be considered if the instrument is solely dedicated to the research needs of NIH-supported investigators.
Instruments must be for research purposes only.
In rare special circumstances when an institution cannot justify sole use of the high-end instrument for NIH-supported and other biomedical research, the institution may request a Special Use Instrument (SUI). Eligibility requirements for SUI requests are described in Section III 3.
Foreign-made instruments are allowed.
The HEI Program will not support requests for:
- An instrument with a base cost of less than $600,000;
- Multiple instruments bundled together;
- Purely instructional equipment;
- Institutional administrative management systems, clinical management systems, or instruments to be used purely for clinical (billable) care;
- Software, unless it is integral to the operation of the requested equipment;
- General purpose equipment or an assortment of instruments to furnish a research facility and equipment for routine sustaining infrastructure (such as standard machine shop equipment, standard computer networks, autoclaves, hoods, and equipment to upgrade animal facilities).
To promote cost effectiveness, to encourage optimal sharing among individual investigators, research groups and departments, and to foster a collaborative multidisciplinary environment, the instrument should be integrated in a core facility, whenever possible.
Instruments must cost above $600,001; maximum award amount is $2,000,000
Eligibility
Applicants are encouraged to consult with their Associate Deans for Research prior to internal submission to assure they meet eligibility criteria and their projects meet stated program objectives.
There is no restriction on the number of applications an institution can submit to the HEI and/or Shared Instrumentation Grant (SIG) Programs each year, provided the applications request different types of equipment. In general, concurrent HEI, SIG, and/or Shared Instrumentation for Animal Research (SIFAR) applications (or the same type of instrument with added special accessories to meet the HEI budget requirement) are not allowed. If two or more S10 (either SIG, HEI, or SIFAR) applications are submitted for similar equipment from the same institution, documentation from a high level institutional official must be provided stating that this is not an unintended duplication, but part of a campus-wide instrumentation plan. Applicants are advised to discuss with the HEI Scientific/Research Contact (see Section VII) potential duplicates before submitting two applications for the same type of instrument.
A single application requesting more than one type of instruments (for example, a mass spectrometer and a confocal microscope) is not appropriate for this FOA.
Central review of internal LOIs will be limited to ensuring that the applications do not duplicate other equipment requested. Applicants must work with their school or college dean to ensure that all financial aspects of the application are approved before submission. Each school or college dean has the right to deny any application submission that does not have an appropriate financial plan in place. Applicants are strongly encouraged to begin discussions with their Associate Dean for Research before submitting an internal LOI
Submission Process
Internal Letters of Intent (LOI's) must be one PDF document.
The single PDF document should be one page containing:
- PI Name,
- PI Department/Division and School/College,
- Name of the equipment,
- Details of the equipment that are sufficient to identify or distinguish it from similar pieces of equipment,
- A list of at least three Major Users and their school/college, and
- PI's NSF or NIH style biosketch.
Major Users are defined in the program announcement. Each Major User must be a PD/PI on a distinct, active NIH research award in an area of basic, translational, or clinical research at the time of award.
This LOI should be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. EST on March 24, 2017.
Materials should be submitted as a single PDF attachment to an email sent to Stephanie Endy at stephanie.endy@case.edu.
Central review will be limited to ensuring that the applications do not duplicate other equipment requested. Applicants must work with their school or college dean to ensure that all financial aspects of the application are approved before submission. Each school or college dean has the right to deny any application submission that does not have an appropriate financial plan in place. Applicants are strongly encouraged to begin discussions with their Associate Dean for Research before submitting an internal LOI.
Final nominees will be notified of their selection by March 31, 2017.
Final proposal due in the Office of Research Administration by May 24, 2017 by 5:00pm EST.
Final proposal must be received by the sponsor by May 31, 2017 at 5:00pm EST.