Grant Mechanisms for Research Centers, Meetings, and Conferences

P30: Center Core Grants

Center Core Grants (P30) support shared resources and facilities for research by many researchers from different disciplines who provide a multidisciplinary approach to a collaborative research effort or from the same discipline who focus on a common research problem. The core grant is utilized by research projects, though funded independently of them.

P50: Specialized Centers

Specialized Centers (P50) support any part of the full range of research from very basic to clinical; they may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary study on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area.

Other Research-related Awards

R13: Scientific Meeting Grants

Scientific Meeting Grants (R13) support national or international meetings, conferences, and workshops.

NIA follows NIH policy, which requires applications for support of scientific meetings to include documentation from NIA staff that NIA will accept assignment of the application. Permission must be obtained no later than 6 weeks before the receipt date for an application.

There are three annual receipt dates for scientific meetings. Applications must be submitted to Grants.gov by those dates. Visit the NIH Grants and Funding website for current submission dates. For NIA to make an award, applications must be submitted at least 6 months before the meeting.

NIH provides a general resource site on support of scientific meetings and conferences. The associated Contacts list provides the NIA staff member to contact for permission to submit the application. Visit the NIH Grants and Funding website for NIH Support for Conferences and Scientific Meetings (Parent R13) (PA-18-648).

NIA accepts applications for up to 5 years of support across all areas of the Institute’s mission. Most meeting applications request less than $50,000 a year in direct costs. Although requests for costs more than $50,000 a year may be accepted, NIA requires a separate internal review process for such applications, and their acceptance may be delayed.

U31: Conference-Cooperative Agreement Awards

Extramural investigators occasionally develop scientific meetings that involve NIA staff in the planning of the meeting (e.g., organizing, developing the agenda, or selecting speakers). Additionally, extramural investigators may serve as an editor and prepare manuscripts from the meeting results. In these circumstances, the NIA staff member provides substantial assistance to the principal investigator (PI) beyond the program administrator's traditional role. When the NIA staff role in a meeting is substantial, a cooperative agreement (U13) application should be submitted.

Although the PI likely will have contact with a particular NIA staff member while preparing the application, it is the PI's responsibility to obtain agreement from the Institute to accept the application. Therefore, investigators should follow the policies described above for R13 applications.

When PIs obtain the agreement of at least one NIA staff member to play a more substantial role in the meeting, the following criteria apply:

• The application should state, following the research plan, the PI acknowledges and agrees to NIA staff post-award involvement in the planning and conducting of the scientific meeting and should describe plans to accommodate this involvement.
• The applicant should describe the role of the NIA staff member(s) in the application.

The terms and conditions of U13 cooperative agreements are given in the NIH program announcement. See: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/r13/index.htm.