Funds for Administrative Supplements

NIA UPDATE: Report on Recovery Act Funds for Administrative Supplements

NIA has canceled the opportunity to seek new ARRA administrative supplements in FY 2010

The National Institutes of Health announced (NOT-OD-09-056) the opportunity for investigators and institutions with active NIH Research Project Grants (and some other categories of award) to request administrative supplements for the purpose of increasing the tempo of approved and funded projects. Support for these supplements came from funds available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The purpose of the program is to provide researchers supplementary funds that can be used to accelerate the tempo of scientific research on active grants with the ultimate goal of promoting job creation and economic development along with accelerating the pace of scientific research. Supplements could request up to two years of support.

Across the three submission dates offered in 2009 (May 1, June 1, and July 1) NIA received 996 requests for supplemental support. Across all grant mechanisms about $19.5 million (across two years) was awarded to support these requests. With average requested costs around $230,000, NIA achieved a success rate of a little over 10% (after major cuts to many of the supplement requests that were funded). That success rate was similar to or a little higher than success rate for other ARRA programs.

Because of this overwhelming demand NIA has canceled the opportunity to submit new Recovery Act administrative supplement requests in FY 2010. NIA expects that some administrative supplement funding will be available through conventional funds to respond to particular events that may happen in FY 2010. Similarly NIA will continue to support diversity supplements in FY 2010. Grantees may contact individual program staff to explore these opportunities if an identified need arises.