Archived Comments: NIH Paylines & Resources (March-May 2010)

Here are comments originally left at NIH Paylines & Resources in calendar year 2010 (through the end of May).

mali said
March 30, 2010 @ 9:53 am · Edit
If anyone is waiting on news for F32 funding from NCI, I was notified yesterday that mine was funded. My score (A2) was 31. Good luck to everyone out there.

gsk said
March 31, 2010 @ 7:33 pm · Edit
Mali, when did you submit? December? My primary is NIGMS and just got my score yesterday.

mali said
April 1, 2010 @ 9:24 am · Edit
Gsk, I submitted in August of 09. It took awhile!
Good luck for yours.

Doug said
March 31, 2010 @ 11:19 am · Edit
I just got back my priority score from a K23 (A2) from NIAAA. The score was a 29, and they don’t establish specific paylines. I see that some institutes fund up to scores of 30 for K’s, but the project officer told me in a phone call that she wouldn’t know if it would be funded until closer to the June Council date.

Meanwhile, I have to make decisions about whether to teach in the Fall, and also whether to sign on to two other grant submissions due at the end of April and on the June NIH cycle. Anyone have any sage advice for me? I don’t want to overextend myself if the K23 will in fact come though.

waiting said
April 2, 2010 @ 1:04 pm · Edit
I have been told by my PO that I will receive funding for a K01 (NIDDK) and that the funding can start sometime in April. My grant contains studies in cells, animals and humans. I have received institutional approval for animal studies, but am having a hard time getting IRB approval for human studies. Part of the issue is that the human studies, as proposed, would not start until year 3 of the grant, so the IRB isn’t excited about giving approval so far in advance.

Is there a precedent to initiate the grant without IRB approval with the provision that no human studies can be conducted until that approval is obtained? I was told by my PO that it should be possible, but haven’t heard back in weeks, and I think he’s tired of hearing from me, so I”m hesitant to contact him again.

Thanks for any insight you might have.

z7 said
April 2, 2010 @ 1:20 pm · Edit
Congratulations! waiting. when did you submit your application, and what was your primary score on your K01? have you heard any payline information from your PO on Ks? I am stilling waiting for K99 payline of the NIDDK and will appreciate your information.

valerie said
April 2, 2010 @ 1:28 pm · Edit
I was able to negotiate a similar situation for my K01 from NICHD. I obtained IRB approval for Study 1 (extant data) with funding for Year 2(and beyond) initiation of new human subjects study (maltreated youth) contingent upon IRB approval IRB with the materials. Also, talk to the grants management specialist about this, as s/he is the one with the final approval for issuing the award. Hope this helps! Best wishes.

waiting said
April 2, 2010 @ 1:35 pm · Edit
Thanks for the comments. Hopefully I can negotiate something because my salary runs out in a couple months and, given how much of a nightmare the IRB has been to deal with, I’m not hopeful I can get approval that quickly.

Z7,I submitted my K01 last June. I received a priority score of 19.

z7 said
April 2, 2010 @ 1:45 pm · Edit
waiting, thank you very much for answering my question. have you heard anything about the Payline for Ks from your PO by any chance? thanks again.

mel said
April 2, 2010 @ 4:08 pm · Edit
Hi I resubmitted my R01 as an ESI in March 2010 (Got 35 in first application). Site states review will be in October for the A1. Isnt that too long? Whats the point in being allowed early resubmission as a new investigator?

whimple said
April 3, 2010 @ 11:38 am · Edit
Sounds like you missed a review cycle. Did your summary statement invite you to do rapid resubmission?

D said
April 3, 2010 @ 12:17 pm · Edit
My guess is that the date your review panel meets hasn’t been determined yet. The October Date is the date that your council meets not when the review meets.

Keep watching. I bet you will see it change.

mel said
April 3, 2010 @ 6:17 pm · Edit
You are right, October 10 is the council meeting date. The SRG will probably meet much earlier.

Y said
April 5, 2010 @ 11:24 am · Edit
laghs, in case you are wondering, I received my NGA last weekend. The administrative cut is from 250k to 190k each year (for a 5-year grant).

laghs said
April 5, 2010 @ 11:30 am · Edit
Thanks for the update. Similar to my situation.

xmen said
April 5, 2010 @ 12:05 pm · Edit
what happened to the older posts, i thought there were 100s of posts (checking which institute Y and laghs are from)?

laghs said
April 8, 2010 @ 10:09 am · Edit
NIGMS

md said
April 5, 2010 @ 2:04 pm · Edit
We are currently waiting for an NGA for our R21. Does anybody have any clue how long this will take? Our grant became fundable when NIAID raised their paylines 10 days ago. I keep checking my commons account but it still says “council meeting completed”. I need to hire a post-doc and don’t want to commit until I get NGA.

SG said
April 6, 2010 @ 7:55 am · Edit
md, give it until the end of the week. I am sure that the grants management folks are very busy writing the NGAs for all of the “newly” fundable grants. Lots of paper to shuffle around and lots of signatures to get.

SW said
April 5, 2010 @ 3:57 pm · Edit
I am still waiting to hear about the funding decision for my F32 submitted in August 2009 to the NIDDK. Has anyone heard? My PO said I was close about 1.5 mos ago but I haven’t heard anything further.

B.O.S.S. said
April 6, 2010 @ 2:44 pm · Edit
SW, It seems like it’s taking a long time for everything at NIDDK (although I am new to this, so I don’t have much to compare with). On Friday I got the JIT request via e-mail from NIDDK for my R21 that was submitted in June 2009. At least this is a step forward for me. Did you get the JIT request yet?

z7 said
April 6, 2010 @ 2:49 pm · Edit
B.O.S.S, what was your primary score on your R21?

SW said
April 6, 2010 @ 5:21 pm · Edit
Thanks B.O.S.S. Yes, I received the JIT in Jan which was submitted then.

z7 said
April 9, 2010 @ 1:43 pm · Edit
has any application in last October cycle received summary statements?

B.O.S.S. said
April 6, 2010 @ 3:43 pm · Edit
z7: I got a score of 17 (there was no percentile).

sciencegirl said
April 7, 2010 @ 9:58 am · Edit
NIAID now has interim paylines up for everything except AREA and F grants.

Doug said
April 8, 2010 @ 1:39 pm · Edit
Noticed a few people are talking about getting Notice of Grant Awards. I’m curious for those that are recently getting these if they are from teh October standard NIH dates?

Joseph said
April 8, 2010 @ 6:09 pm · Edit
Does anybody knows the current payline for SBIR grants at NCI?

xmen said
April 9, 2010 @ 12:35 pm · Edit
so, what happened to the older posts?

i thought those 100s of comments are a great resource.

Y said
April 9, 2010 @ 12:36 pm · Edit
I agree.

writedit said
April 9, 2010 @ 1:48 pm · Edit
Hey .. just noticed the loss of comments. Let me check with WordPress …

In the meantime, the same sort of conversation goes on over at the NIH Discussion page.

xmen said
April 9, 2010 @ 2:24 pm · Edit
right, but this thread was so big with so much details.

writedit said
April 9, 2010 @ 3:31 pm · Edit
Update from WordPress … hopefully we’ll get the old comments back:

“We’ve fixed the code to prevent comments from disappearing for any future edits, but we’re still working to find out if we can recover the deleted comments from your blog. We will let you know as soon as we have any updates with regard to recovering the deleted comments.”

xmen said
April 9, 2010 @ 5:09 pm · Edit
I guess they should be able to recover/rollback the deleted comments–these days everything is backed up nightly.

If they hesitate let us know, we will all rally to show how important and often our only ray of hope and we will fight to bring this back

ali said
April 9, 2010 @ 3:26 pm · Edit
Hi,

I submitted K99 to NIAID. This week I found out that NIAID posted the paylines for most grants except K99. The payline for “K except K99″ was 26. I wonder if the payline for K99 will be lower (i.e. tighter) than 26… Does anyone know about this, in general?

SG said
April 9, 2010 @ 6:12 pm · Edit
My guess is that the K99 payline will be much much tighter. NIAID funds very few K99s. According to NIH Reporter AI funded only 7 last year.

z7 said
April 10, 2010 @ 12:21 am · Edit
I just recieved the summary statement of my K99 applciation submitted last October. three reviewers reviewed my application, two of them gave me criterion scores like 1 or 2, but the 3rd reviewer gave me 6 or 7 with pretty many critiques which do not make sense to me and are not consistent with the other two reviewers’ comments. how comes??? I do not quite understand this.

Now I am going to talk to my PO, can I make complaints on this? any thoughts and inputs will be appreciated.

pete said
April 10, 2010 @ 1:11 am · Edit
what is your summary of discussion like? that may matter more than individual criterion when there is disagreement among reviewers.

kit said
April 11, 2010 @ 12:31 am · Edit
z7: how is your final impact score? I had the similar situation from my Oct K99 (although not as dramatic as yours of “6-7″ ). The 1st and 3rd reviewers were very enthusiastic but the 2nd just completely uninspired. The disagreement apparently drew a 4th reviewer (only comments but no score). Based on the Summary of discussion, it looked like the 2nd was able to convince others to reduce the impact of my proposal. Pete was right, I think the Summary on 1st page basically said it all how the discussion went. My questions are (1) in the upcoming council meeting, will the members read the summary statement or just look at the final impact score and decide if it is fundable? (2) Is there anything to be aware of when try to appeal a case to the PO?? the last person on earth whom I don’t wanna agitate is the PO now. Any insights will be appreciated.

z7 said
April 11, 2010 @ 12:44 am · Edit
kit, my final impact score is 21, what is yours and whick IC are you in? I have same questions as you listed, hopefully they will be answered.

pete, thanks for your comments. I checked my summary of discussion, seems like the reviewer who gave me low scores did not affect this discussion summary that much.

pete said
April 11, 2010 @ 9:43 am · Edit
No formal appeal, but try to talk directly and through connections like whimple suggested.

whimple said
April 11, 2010 @ 8:34 am · Edit
If you work for big-name famous PI who has lots of grants and connections, maybe have him/her talk to your PO on your behalf, to, you know, really emphasize the excellentness of your training and your certainty of success at the next level that merits investing a K99 in you. The other candidates with marginal scores are probably doing this so you need to keep up.

pete said
April 11, 2010 @ 9:41 am · Edit
z7:

I think ‘unfair’ scoring from reviewer-3 was noticed and likely balanced out by the fourth reviewer’s comments.

Clearly, a 21 + good summary of discussion points out that the unfair scoring from reviewer-3 was taken care of at the review meeting. You are very lucky, often guys with strong negative point try to overpower others, clearly didn’t work in your case!!!

DrugMonkey said
April 10, 2010 @ 1:07 am · Edit
APPEAL!!!!11!!!!!ELEVEN!!!

Emaderton3 said
April 13, 2010 @ 12:58 pm · Edit
Has anyone who applied for a career award with NCI for the November 12 deadline received their summary statement yet? I was just curious since I have not received mine yet (they are 3 weeks late). I know that the process has been a bit slow and to be patient, but I just wanted to check if any of them are rolling out yet.

Thanks!

Emaderton3 said
April 23, 2010 @ 1:50 pm · Edit
Although it was 4 weeks late, I have finally received my summary statement. After talking to my PO, I was told to be very optimistic about funding and expect a JIT request. However, the possible award date will be delayed by about 3 months, so things must still be backlogged.

I had a question about career awards and salary. The award is obviously budgeted for a particular salary (say a post-doc). What if someone were to get a promotion or a faculty position prior to the NOA of the career award? Can the budget be adjusted to cover the increase in salary (in order to match the guaranteed protected percentage of time)? And by adjusted, I don’t mean shifting money from supplies to salary, but actually asking for an increase in the total amount of money to cover the new salary? Can that be submitted with JIT materials prior to NOA, or is this not an option? It may be unorthodox but could theoretically be a bargaining tool for a perspective hire (i.e., that they could cover their entire salary).

SaG said
April 23, 2010 @ 2:16 pm · Edit
Nice try but no. The budget is fixed. They can cut your budget but would only increase it in very rare circumstances. Of course, you can still try. Since this is a K25 the PO might have other ways of doing the same thing.

Emaderton3 said
April 23, 2010 @ 2:24 pm · Edit
I did ask the PO who said that I can ask for what is legally allowed once I am contacted by Grants Management (the K pays up to $100K), but I am not sure if I made it clear that it was an actual budget increase and not a budget adjustment. However, the hypothetical example I made gave an increase in salary that was above what could be arrived at by combining the budgeted salary and all of the supply money. I don’t want to ask any more questions because my grant still needs to go through council.

york said
April 23, 2010 @ 4:00 pm · Edit
Emardonton, why don’t you want to ask questions because your thing is pending council?

Emaderton3 said
April 23, 2010 @ 4:22 pm · Edit
Actually, because I was told not to ask any more questions

york said
April 23, 2010 @ 4:55 pm · Edit
That’s good that you got all that could be told.

Emaderton3 said
April 24, 2010 @ 2:14 pm · Edit
SaG, but what about the wording of the guidelines for the award form the program announcement:

“Salary Support: The salary requested for the candidate must be consistent with both the established salary structure for full-time staff appointments and with salaries actually provided by the institution from its own funds to other staff members of equivalent qualifications, rank, and responsibilities in the applicable department. Confirmation of the actual salary is required prior to the issuance of an award. The candidate is required to devote a minimum of 75% of full-time effort to this program.”

So if you were to get a promotion, the old budgeted salary no longer follows NIH’s own guidelines. Since the salary needs to be confirmed prior to issuance of the award, wouldn’t it be reasonable to correct the amount to follow their own rules?

SaG said
April 25, 2010 @ 4:25 pm · Edit
Those rules are mostly to prevent someone from claiming on their NIH grant that the school pays them $100K when in fact the school only pays them $50k. So, you can’t make a deal with the Dean that they will “pay” you a big salary for NIH when in fact the school has no intention of ever paying you that much from their own funds. The school can’t get out of paying you the other 25%.

But, the real issue is how NIH Institutes deal with grants to people who go from a low salary to a dramatically higher salary during the course of a grant. With the K99/R00s they give you a budget increase when you switch to the R00 so an increased salary doesn’t hurt. For R01s they tell you to rebudget within the grant and stop whining. My reading of the K25 announcement is that the school can cover the difference (a supplement) if they want but NIH is under no obligation to give you more money.

But, once your grant starts you can always ask your PO and see if they can supplement your grant with other NIH money.

Good luck.

md said
April 13, 2010 @ 3:54 pm · Edit
Did anybody whose grant became fundable with the recent increase of the payline at NIAID receive a notice of award? I have been checking my ERA account and the status field still shows “council meeting completed”, which means administrative review has not yet started. Any comment as to when we should expect to receive the NGA.

DK said
April 18, 2010 @ 10:26 am · Edit
md – the answer to your question is no. But I guess it also depends on the start date you requested. I have an O1 and 21 going into this council in May but the start dates are July 1 and Sept 1 respectively.

Last year another IC funded one of my 21 with a start date of Sept 1 – I received the NGA on Aug 30th.

md said
April 18, 2010 @ 3:57 pm · Edit
We submitted this in July 09. Council meeting was completed back in December 09. I need to hire a post-doc but don’t want to commit before I receive the NGA.

sciencegirl said
April 16, 2010 @ 9:25 am · Edit
Interim paylines for all NIAID grants are now posted.

DK said
April 18, 2010 @ 10:23 am · Edit
sciencegirl, please see my recent response to your post of Apr 6th, on the other blog. Thanks

DK said
May 6, 2010 @ 10:03 am · Edit
Hi MD

In response to your question from a couple of weeks ago, I received an award letter yesterday on my NIAID R21 which had come into fundable range due to changes in paylines recently.

Best wishes,

Laurence Morel said
April 20, 2010 @ 1:51 pm · Edit
I submitted recently a diversity supplement on an NIAID RO1 for a graduate student. I cannot get any information on the payline/success rate of this kind of proposal. Does anybody know? Thanks

D said
April 21, 2010 @ 10:27 am · Edit
Is it an administrative supplement or a competitive supplement? My guess is that it is administrative. Which means it is not peer reviewed by external reviewers. All funding decisions are made within NIAID Program and only the Program Officer would know the chances of success.

A said
April 20, 2010 @ 2:11 pm · Edit
I submitted K to NIDDK for the October cycle. Study section already met 3/15, and I received a 30 but I still haven’t received summary sheets. Has anyone received their summary sheets? also, anyone out there from the last cycle know what the payline was for NIDDK with Ks? I hear that last year DDK funded up to the 40s, but this is obviously unsubstantiated… Any and all help would be appreciated!

w said
April 20, 2010 @ 2:32 pm · Edit
I applied for an F31 at NIA in the August 2009 cycle. My impact score of 20 was funded, hope that helps everyone gauge their impact scores.

robert said
April 25, 2010 @ 6:45 pm · Edit
I submitted a K99/R00 proposal back in July to NIDDK and received a 20 priority score which was ultimatley not funded.

Does anyone know the likelihood of acquiring funding from a secondary institute assignment? Does anyone know what the payline for this grant mechanisms is at NIBIB?

nutter said
April 25, 2010 @ 7:02 pm · Edit
Cannot believe 20 is not fundable, sorry man. NIBIB I think is also a tough institute with few grants. Did your PO at NIDDK tell of possibilities to fund later after the 3rd council?

red menace said
April 28, 2010 @ 1:34 pm · Edit
Got an NCI GMS added! I think the saga is almost over!

neumann said
April 28, 2010 @ 1:57 pm · Edit
I think GMS assignment is automatic and routine and nothing to do with being “over”, isn’t?

writedit said
April 28, 2010 @ 2:47 pm · Edit
Well, I would think they only add a GMS when there is (or will be soon) an award to manage.

true said
April 28, 2010 @ 3:42 pm · Edit
Hi – I’m sorry to report that I was assigned a GMS in my original application, but was not funded (NIA, K01, priority score=31). I just looked at my revised application and it has been assigned a GMS, even though the proposal hasn’t been reviewed yet.

bikemonkey said
April 28, 2010 @ 8:16 pm · Edit
Grants Management Specialists are assigned as a matter of course, in my experience. In fact, I have a grant which is waiting to be reviewed at the moment that has a GMS listed.

I’m not going on much other than recollection here but my memory suggests this is always the case. Or usually the case. For example, I also see one assigned for my most recently triaged application.

bottom line, assignment of a GMS doesn’t mean squat about the ultimate fate of your proposal.

york said
April 28, 2010 @ 8:34 pm · Edit
ok red-menace, don’t be disheartened, try to find something else to place your hope on so as many of who are waiting do.

now, i’m pondering the deeper meaning of ‘mean squat’. squat 400/500 lbs, you will see your testosterone/growth hormone increase and with regular training see yourself grow. now, with that, what does ‘mean squat’ mean?

writedit said
April 29, 2010 @ 6:43 am · Edit
Okay – I was thinking this was a new non-squatting addition to the communication circle, like a personal request for JIT vs the ubiquitous automated listing for a scored, in-the-running-for-funding application.

bikemonkey said
April 29, 2010 @ 11:53 am · Edit
Yeah, the extra reminder email from PO or GMS to get your behind moving with your JIT does actually mean that they are trying to fund you. When you are on the borderline, my assumption is that having the ducks all lined up makes it easier to fund it. Therefore, if you see this message, get right the heck on it with no delay.

bikemonkey said
April 28, 2010 @ 10:32 pm · Edit
“squat” or more properly “diddly squat” connotes a negligible amount of something. This is likely a US regionalism.

red menace said
May 24, 2010 @ 9:13 am · Edit
OK, guys, the saga may not be over yet. I emailed the GMS and asked what’s up, and the reply was “The award is about to be released – how about June 1st for start date?” I was thrilled, BUT, the blessed date is only a week away, and still no NoA. They sure like to keep you sweating…

neumann said
May 24, 2010 @ 9:36 am · Edit
congrats brother, that is a great development.

red menace said
May 27, 2010 @ 9:10 am · Edit
For those of you who try to decypher the meaning of eRA status codes, yesterday my “council review completed” was replaced by “Award prepared: refer questions to Grants Management Specialist”, and today “Pending administrative review. Refer any questions to Program Official or Grants Management Specialist”. I think some of you also got similar messages, so I think this is positive.

writedit said
May 27, 2010 @ 9:59 am · Edit
Congratulations! Best wishes for success with the research!

neumann said
May 27, 2010 @ 9:26 am · Edit
sweet!

red menace said
June 1, 2010 @ 9:00 am · Edit
Got my NGA today! I woul like to thank writedit and everyone who contributes to this forum – the information was very helpul for a newbie like myself, and the emotional support tremendous.

K99 Applicant said
May 1, 2010 @ 4:44 am · Edit
Hi ,

I submitted a new K99 grant for the first time ever in December 2009 for a NCI Nanotech Career Development award and got a score of 30. I have an automated JIT request in my ERA COMMONS but i was wondering if this score is “fundable”. The PO just asked me to be patient. Help !

Emaderton3 said
May 1, 2010 @ 9:13 am · Edit
I submitted a new K25 grant in February 2009 and also received a 30. After a long time, I was finally told not to be optimistic about funding (I have since resubmitted and greatly improved my score with a great chance of funding). From the information on this website and NIH, the K99 awards have separate paylines than other K awards, and they are usually lower scores (i.e., more difficult to get). I would suggest planning on resubmitting just in case since you may be just outside the border.

stellar said
May 5, 2010 @ 7:09 pm · Edit
Can one accept a K08 @ 75%FTE and stay on as other personnel 25% on another NIH funded grant? say an R01 from another PI?
My awards people are saying i cannot have federal funding sources for the remaining 25% of my effort beyond the K08.

SaG said
May 6, 2010 @ 8:02 am · Edit
According to NIAID the answer is only in the last 2 years of your K08 Award can you receive other Federal Salary support. See…..

“Can I apply for and receive an R01 after I receive a K01, K08, K23, or K25? May I then hold these awards simultaneously? What about salary?”

In the last two years of your support, you are allowed to hold concurrent salary support from a career award and any peer-reviewed grant from NIH or another federal agency. To learn more, go to Career Development Awards and read Do any career awards allow you to receive a salary from a second NIH-funded grant? in the Salaries and Stipends questions and answers.

http://funding.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/qa/k.htm#r01k08

zack said
May 12, 2010 @ 1:16 pm · Edit
I have a question regarding the 3-year R15 grant that I received recently. In my original budget, I requested one course reduction (equal to 1.125 academic person months) per year. Can I change this to paying myself one month summer salary and probably using the remaining (0.125 person month) for conference trips? Do I need to report to NIH to get prior approval for this small rebudget? Thanks !

SaG said
May 12, 2010 @ 3:45 pm · Edit
Although I am not familiar with the intricacies, if any, of R15s, but you are not technically rebudgeting since you are still using the money to pay your salary.

As long as you can still reasonably get the proposed work done, what you plan is fine.

madness007 said
May 13, 2010 @ 11:33 am · Edit
Hi,

I just got my NCI K99 impact score posted (20) and have a similar set of questions to Emaderton3′s posts. When I submitted, although my PO told me to ask for the maximum salary ($100K), my institution flat-out balked at this, using the logic of “no-way would they ever pay me that much”, so all I can ask for is my current salary with a marginal raise. I clarified with my PO that I would be able to adjust the salary if it got funded, so now I’m wondering if anyone else at any institution has some feedback or advice on how I might be able to convince my institution that it is ok to pay me what the grant will fund. I’ve heard things like:

“you can’t expect to make that sort of money, 1st year professors here don’t even make that”

But I didn’t make up the salary scale… and I’ve got a family to support, and I would really really hate to leave that sort of money on the table!

From what I understand, if I can convince my institution to grant me a title change that would get me out of the “postdoc” umbrella, like some sort of non-tenure track research associate or something like that, I might be able to request more money. I’m basically looking for hard data from other successful K99 awardees that have managed to get permission from their institutions to have NIH pay more than an NRSA-payscale. I’d like to be armed with some facts and figures before trying to fight this battle again.

As an aside, I’ve been told by the administrative staff that if my mentor was affiliated with the medical school I wouldn’t have had any trouble requesting the maximum salary, but because we’re going through a biology department I’m running into trouble.

Emaderton3 said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:22 pm · Edit
I am actually in a medical school department and wasn’t allowed to ask for more salary than the position I am currently in. I have also looked into a possible non-tenure promotion (like research instructor or research assistant professor), but they don’t pay much more than my current salary. Of course, every little bit helps. I am also still not clear on whether I can increase the budget (instead of pulling the money from the supplies), but hopefully I can find out more closer to NOA time.

Basically, I don’t think anyone would allow a post-doc to be paid $100K even if you can pay it yourself. All universities and medical schools have a defined pay scale they follow regardless of what you can bring in.

I hope you can work something out!

madness007 said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:30 pm · Edit
but post-docs that have these awards must be getting paid more than the “normal” post-doc pay scale. If you look at the total funding for these grants, there are definitely people making more than typical post-doc salaries (yearly funding of ~$130K+ in some cases, which would be salary plus fringe plus the $30K in supplies):

http://fundedresearch.cancer.gov/search/ResultManager?fy=PUB2009&mech=K99&arra=Both+ARRA+and+Non-ARRA

I don’t understand why NIH would even bother increasing the salary limit from $75K to $100K if most institutions aren’t even going to pay out the original $75K to a postdoc?

I hope you can work something out too!

Emaderton3 said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:35 pm · Edit
I am not that familiar with K99 awards, but the rest of the K’s are open to not just post-docs but faculty also (and actually many institutes require a faculty position–I got lucky that NCI allows post-docs to apply). In that case, they would need the salary to potentially be high so that it could cover a faculty member as well and not necessarily give a lower level person a bigger salary.

Believe me, I wish it wasn’t so!

pete said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:42 pm · Edit
Congrats madness for the great score! (that sounds like a weird psych statement).

Am I the only one who thinks you are missing the point and you are focusing totally on the wrong issue?

My take is that the primary purpose of the first 1 or 2 years of the k99 grant is not to make you rich or help you financially, but to put on the right track and increase your job market value to eventually get a science job. If you can get the grant, I wouldn’t fight about the money part, I would take what I can get and focus on an early transition to the r00 part. Before you blink you will be at the end of the k99 phase and it is not even worth putting a fight or creating an ill-will with the institution or the po.

But……. that’s just me.

co said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:51 pm · Edit
IMO, yes Pete, you are missing the point. The point, as I see it, is that we’d all like to be paid fairly for our work, now, not down the road. Setting ourselves up for a better position in three years doesn’t help to pay the mortgage and pay for braces in the next 24-36 months. What Madness is asking for isn’t an obscene amount of money, it’s simply to be paid an amount that is in accordance with his level of training and with other faculty members in his department.

Again, IMO, it is worth fighting about money (albeit with as much respect and tact as you can muster) if that extra money means a dramatic improvement in you and your family’s quality of life.

pete said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:53 pm · Edit
most of the answers are clearly laid out in the PA. i have no problem if you could “muster” and work things out.

Peace.

peluhukay said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:33 pm · Edit
I can offer my situation which is close, but not exact to what you mentioned. I was a post-doc when I applied for my K01. I wrote my K01 (and had our department head back this up) saying that the salary I proposed was based upon my receiving this award and that at such time, I would be promoted to a Research Scientist position. Neither Sponsored Programs, nor my department, nor the NIH (NCRR, in particular) had issues with this. Once I received my NOA, I went to my department and they started my position change (which the salary I proposed on my grant fell into that position and not my current post-doctoral position). However, since the K01 is a lower salary than the K99 I couldn’t get a faculty position. The way I wrote my grant involved maxing out the salary offered for the K01, then backing it out 5 years with a 3% inflation rate (NIH rules, which kinda sucks considering that I am at a land grant institute that currently has a freeze on all raises, but I may petition come next June). I think it all depends on what your department head is willing to give you and how your institute runs. I have heard that even within the university I am at, there are differences in how departments allow you to claim a salary for your grant. I lucked out to be in one that let me take full advantage of the salary offerings of the grant.

Emaderton3 said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:37 pm · Edit
So you had in your grant that if you got it, you would be promoted??? I was warned by every person I talked to (faculty and staff) not to do that because the reviewers look down upon that. They want to know that you have a job regardless of whether you get the grant or not. Wow!

co said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:49 pm · Edit
My two cents:

First, regarding Emaderton3′s last comment-I too was told before I submitted my K01 that reviewers frown upon statements that the applicant will be promoted from a postdoc to a faculty position IF he/she receives the award. What I did is to have the department head state that the promotion (from postdoc to nontenure assistant professor) would occur regardless of whether the grant was awarded. It’s up to you and your department head to eventually decide how much weight that statement carries in the event you do not get the award.

When I was negotiating a potential salary with my department head (prior to submission), we broke everything down by quarter. So for instance, if the typical salary in the department was 80k for a 9m salary for new assistant professors (~27k per quarter), I would be allowed ~100k because my K01 covered 12m.

madness007 said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:49 pm · Edit
Thanks! This is exactly what I was trying to do ahead of time to be pro-active, but got burned trying to do it, so now I need to wait to see if my score is good enough to fund and then try to pull off something similar. Not sure if anyone here at my institution will go to bat for me or not… That’s really excellent that your dept. chair was willing to vouch for you. I can understand their worry that they would need to pay out if you didn’t get funded, but I would never expect to get paid by my institution the K99 salary, and it seems like the way your dept. and institution handled is perfect – making it contingent on your award.

peluhukay said
May 13, 2010 @ 12:52 pm · Edit
Yep. It may be because my K01 is a Career Development Award and the reviewers wanted to see that the department was behind my career. In the first review, they even wanted a stronger letter from my department chair more or less stating that my university would offer me a faculty position at some point in the future if I received this award. I also think that the reviewers were more concerned about the extra funding for the project of the grant (since I only get $20,000/yr in supply money) rather than the salary part. My Dept head wrote that the grant would support me in a Research Scientist position even though my position on the face page was post-doc. As Emaderton3 stated, the K01 I received was basically open to anyone who was not on a tenure track, not just post-docs. When I received my award, I had already been a post-doc for 5 years and had my DVM, which made the position change seem very logical. I also had a friend at another institute who received the same award a few years prior and has his DVM with no post-doc experience and he was able to get the max salary, so I was ready to fight for it if anyone gave me a bad time about it

Emaderton3 said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:00 pm · Edit
Mine was also a career development award (K25). I was basically laughed at when I asked if I could take all the salary. They said I couldn’t make more money than people in higher positions than myself (post-doc).

Now I may have to look into that! I have been post-docing longer than you but not at my current institution, so they don’t seem to care about promoting me, even to a non-tenure track position. And no one of course wanted to even think about promising one if I didn’t get my grant because no one wanted to pay for it.

Emaderton3 said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:16 pm · Edit
By the way, I would think that if the original budget was written for the maximum but the position stayed as a post-doc that the reviewers would have a big issue with this and recommend a budget revision. Wouldn’t you think so?

madness007 said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:03 pm · Edit
this is a really good dialogue for me – wish I knew about this forum prior to submission. I am very worried that I will have little leverage now, but hopefully I will have some. I’m finishing a 3-year fellowship right now, which is why the K99 seems the way to go with the job market. It’s sad, but based on the sense I get from my mentor, there is no way anyone here will pay me the max $100K, regardless of the fact that it’s not their money. Sigh. But even getting up to the old max of $75K would make a huge impact on my family’s finances, as you can all imagine. This attitude that “first-year professors don’t make that much, so why should you”, is really frustrating, considering how hard I’ve worked (as have most post-docs I know) to get to where I am, and that it’s not like I invented the NCI’s salary limits… I’m just trying to take full advantage of them!

I’ve heard that trying to negotiate a fixed term non-tenure track position might be the way to go. It would be really good if anyone else with a K99 had any insights to offer, since those awards are limited to post-docs, but I really really appreciate these comments / stories about your K01s too!

peluhukay said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:12 pm · Edit
That’s unfortunate that your institute lacks the support of your career. At least here, receiving a K award (or any NIH funding at the moment) is considered a huge benefit to the program, department and school and I had everyone on my side when I applied for this award. Like many of you, I have a family to support and especially having my DVM (which schooling costs pretty much the same as medical school, but the starting salaries for DVMs are way below the medical field), I felt extremely justified in asking for the maximum salary. The irony is that, again, because the K01 maxes at $75K, I couldn’t get a faculty position because I would bring the weighted average of starting faculty members at our institute down-something that my department head was not willing to compromise. This is only because of the silly 3% inflation (my salary won’t be 75K until year 5 of my grant-however, there is a clause that would allow me to supplement my salary 25% with non-federal money, so I could potentially raise my salary to $100K and easily get into a faculty position).

madness007 said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:27 pm · Edit
I was specifically told by my PO to request the max amount, and got into all sorts of trouble with my institution when I showed them those emails, since they had already told me “no.” Definitely made me feel like a small child being scolded – not so fun, complete with getting called into the principal’s office (ok my mentor’s office – who had gotten called into his dept. chair’s office, and we all know which way sh$t runs). But hey – we’re not in this for the money, right? I just wish you could tell that to my child-care bills, mortgage, health insurance (OMG, that’s another whole ball of wax)

peluhukay said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:24 pm · Edit
Good question. I will ask my mentor about this as he just sat on a review committee for K awards not too long ago. I was always under the impression that the committee was not so concerned about the salary (unless it was really out of the ordinary-similar to budgets) as I think it would be something your institution would ultimately have to approve and it varies from institute to institute and person to person. My friend I mentioned above had to fight with his institute to request the maximum and not NIH. Curious if anyone out there has had a K award denied or a budget denied based on salary requests?

Emaderton3 said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:28 pm · Edit
At least in the announcement for the K25, it explicitly states that you should receive salary at the same level as other people get paid at your institution at the same position. So I don’t think it would work to ask for the max if other post-docs don’t get paid $100K.

Another possible alternative is to secure a promotion or position prior to the notice of award. If the above holds true, then theoretically one could ask for an increase in the budget for salary (say if you got promoted from post-doc to faculty) prior to the award being issued. But several people on here told me that probably won’t work, but it is worth a try since it fits how the award was written and meant to be used for funding.

teetotaler said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:28 pm · Edit
I’ve been following this thread with great interest, because it looks like I may be in line for a K23 from NIAAA. When I did JIT, I saw the rule about the 3% cost of living raise cap. This hurts me because I’ll be up for tenure before the K would likely get a larger than 3% raise. Anyone know how this is handled.

madness007 said
May 13, 2010 @ 1:38 pm · Edit
Yep – it’s that wording from the POA that’s causing me all of my headaches:

Salary must be consistent with the established salary structure at the institution from its own funds to other staff members of equivalent qualifications, rank, and responsibilities in the department concerned.

You’re right – with this wording there is no way around it, but what I’d like to get across is that having a K99/R00 is NOT the same as having an NRSA, so we shouldn’t be paid on that payscale, especially when obviously NIH recognizes this, and has increased the salary accordingly. Otherwise they would have just made the salary for the postdoc portion (years 1 & 2) follow the NRSA payscale. ARGH!

My only chance is to negotiate a position / title change, but with how slowly things move, I’ll have to wait to here from my PO what my chances are of actually getting the grant. And ultimately, I imagine nothing will happen for months until I actually get the award (if I get the award). I was just trying to be pro-active (prior to submission) and am now trying to be on the ball now that it’s been scored.

Thanks for all your comments so far!

madness007 said
May 13, 2010 @ 2:04 pm · Edit
to Pete: I understand where you are coming from, believe me I do. And I think it’s the same place my mentor is coming from (but as an aside he did get the same award as a post-doc and got the then $75K max at the time). Yes, if I get this grant, it will help me get a job, and that is priority number 1, for sure! And I’m sure if future “madness” could give me advice, from the security of his tenure track position, he would tell me the same thing. But right, now in the thick of it, it’s extremely stressful to live month to month, while supporting a family, trying to be successful and position myself to get that tenure track job. And the difference between the NRSA pay scale and the max salary will come out to close to $100,000 if it takes two years to get my job, or $50,000 if I am successful in one year. To me and my family, this is a HUGE amount of money – and will allow us to save money to buy a house in the future, pay for childcare, or allow my wife the flexibility of staying home more with our kids if she decides that she wants to.

And again, I’m not trying to do anything that NIH doesn’t want me to do, or else they wouldn’t have put that salary cap into their grant. But I do agree I need to be extremely tactful when trying to negotiate this, which is why this forum has been extremely helpful so far!

pete said
May 13, 2010 @ 2:14 pm · Edit
madness: I cannot say with honesty I know what you are going through, because I am not in your shoes.

Try not to mix personal things with the grant. It is already extremely competitive. So, don’t do anything to piss of the PO. Your home institution or the NIH institute could come back and say, if you want an equal salary as a faculty, you should have gotten an R series grant, not a K99. I am just reminding you to be very careful with how you negotiate because you are many months away from getting an NOA.

Don’t think I am not sensitive to your personal issues, but just reminding to be careful because by the k99 playbook, they don’t have to increase your ‘salary component’; but you could always use the max-limit allowed to buy yourself lab supplies, pricey equipment, etc.

Peace.

pete said
May 13, 2010 @ 2:22 pm · Edit
Having said that, you could explore ‘scientist’ or ‘instructor’ tracks that are “mentored” positions which could give you ~$10,000 more than typical postdoc salary.

Good luck madness, you should be proud for this great score!

Alex said
May 14, 2010 @ 2:49 am · Edit
I just got my score of 27 from NCI on K99 submission. Does anyone here have any information what scores were funded from NCI on previous submissions starting with the new 10-90 scoring point system

madness said
May 14, 2010 @ 9:24 am · Edit
Alex – All I know is that over the last 3 years they’ve funded about 20-25 of them, so it actually depends on how many of us applied, since the funding rates have been all over: 13%, 33%, and 23% the last 3 years. I would imagine with the job market as bad as it is, all of post-docs applied this year. What’s up with them not making funding decisions until 2011? Yikes! So much for that Dec. start date, and so much for any chance of actually knowing if you get it for this year’s job search… sigh.

Sphinx said
June 25, 2010 @ 10:23 pm · Edit
Alex-Someone with an impact score of 28 (NCI K99) just got a preapproval of the award. Check out http://k99r00-land.motionforum.net/k99-r00-success-stories-f2/lol-why-do-we-have-no-posts-here-t38.htm. If NCI strictly relies on the impact score, you have a good chance as well.

Alex said
May 14, 2010 @ 11:23 am · Edit
Madness, I thought I was wrong to consider that fact (their emails sounded informative but very confusing) that the decision will only be made after the start of new FY (Oct.1 2010)

But this quote means we need to wait at least until Feb.2011 ??!!

“However, until several months after the US Congress and the President of the US sign a budget, can NCI entertain any initial determinations of what grants we can award. Historically, a signed budget has not been seen until February of the government’s fiscal year.”

madness007 said
May 14, 2010 @ 11:33 am · Edit
Yeah – did you notice we got a very quick follow up email from our PO? My guess is someone else or perhaps several people emailed her in confusion! It’s not even that the start-dates will be pushed into 2011, but instead of them meeting in October to decide and send out NOA’s they are going to wait until after Congress passes the 2011 budget to even meet to decide who gets funded! It’s crazy! They’re saying sometime between January and June of 2011!!!!

We’re all stuck in complete limbo – how do you go on the job market (esp. this job market) saying, well, I got a great score on my K99, but I won’t really know if I got it until after your search committee picks people to interview, so you’re just going to have to trust me…

As far as I can tell, it’s going to put everyone who applied for a K99 this year at a distinct disadvantage in this year’s job market – and that’s not even considering the whole – you need to spend 1-year in your mentor’s lab after you start!

What I want to know is this only applying to K-awards or are NRSA’s and R01s being treated this way too? I can only imagine the headaches this will cause – it’s not like another year or two of being a post-doc matters to us, right? argh….

writedit said
May 14, 2010 @ 12:02 pm · Edit
I’ve done various posts about the impact delays in appropriations have on funding decisions … the reality is that the NIH operates under a continuing resolution (continuing the prior year appropriation levels) almost half of each fiscal year, which in turn leads to serious delays in funding for applications submitted during Cycle I (Feb-Mar) and a scramble at the end to pick up worthy applications from all cycles before the end of the fiscal year. This year is the longest I can recall it taking NIAID to post final paylines, and I’d say this foreshadows even longer delays in funding decisions in the upcoming years of budget impasses compounded by limited resources.

And the answer is, all applications to any mechanism or IC is affected the same way. Those applications that clearly score within paylines (i.e., 10th percentile or below, impact score below 20 …. usually) will be processed sooner, those close to the prior payline will be left hanging until the appropriation is approved (which is not a guarantee – FY07 operated under continuing resolutions the entire fiscal year on into FY08, until the omnibus budget bill was signed in December) and the IC has a good estimate of the number of competitive applications in the pool (so after the Cycle III reviews in Feb-Mar).

madness007 said
May 14, 2010 @ 1:03 pm · Edit
thanks for this info!

maybe you know this… if people resubmit for A1 scoring, especially with these funding delays, do they end up getting scored and evaluated in the same pool as the original applications. The reason I ask this is that I did get a good score, but am wondering if people that scored worse resubmit, and then improve their score do they then move ahead of me? Does this make sense? It makes it more difficult to be satisfied with your score if you have to worry about everyone resubmitting and moving ahead of you.

writedit said
May 14, 2010 @ 2:01 pm · Edit
At NHLBI and NINDS, a payline break is given to A0s, and this trend may extend to other ICs in the coming years. The goal is to fund more research on its first submission.

During peer review, the impact score is based on scientific merit so does not (or should not) take into account amendment status … though historically this has occurred (i.e., resubmissions given better scores to enhance their likelihood of funding, especially on their last “chance” – formerly an A2, now an A1). Hence the efforts of some ICs to overcome this bias by adjusting paylines according to amendment status.

So, yes, in the past, people resubmitting would probably jump ahead of your good A0 score. The NIH would like to lessen this trend, so you aren’t forced to wait.

Elizabeth said
May 14, 2010 @ 3:40 pm · Edit
I just got my impact score for a K22 and my PD also told me, no decision on funding until Dec 2010-April 2011. She also cautioned me to think about not resubmitting because if I resubmit and my score gets higher and then they decide they can fund my original score, they have to go with the most recent score. I think I’m on the bubble, so I’ll just wait for the summary statement. I have a friend that got scored this year with the same score, but not sure what’s going to happen.

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