FIRST COHORT (RFA-RM-20-022)

ELIGIBILITY

What is a Limited-Resourced Institution? What is a Highly Resourced Institution (HRI)? 

• LRI: For this funding announcement, LRIs are institutions offering doctorate degrees in the health professions or in a health-related science and that have a historical and current commitment to educating underrepresented students, and, for institutions that provide clinical health care services, to medically underserved communities. LRIs must have received less than $50 million average in annual NIH funds within the three years prior to the time of application (these criteria are identical to the Research Centers in Minority Institutions criteria, an independent program).
• HRI: HRIs are institutions that have received more than $50 million average in annual NIH funds within the three years prior to the time of application. 
• Both LRIs and HRIs must provide evidence of their commitment to diversity and inclusion. 
• Institutions are either LRIs or HRIs; if you are unsure about whether your institution is an LRI or HRI, please reach out to the NIH program staff. 

Are independent research institutions eligible?

• Yes.

If an institution does not qualify as an LRI is it automatically an HRI even if it does not meet the $50 million threshold?

• If an institution doesn’t meet one or more of the criteria to apply as an LRI, it is still eligible to apply as an HRI even if it doesn’t meet the $50 million + threshold. Please note that for these institutions, the requirements stipulated in the RFA for HRIs would apply if awarded, for example-the requirement to hire a cohort of no fewer than 10.

Are intra-university partnerships, e.g., partnerships between university campuses, permissible? 

• Yes.

Does an institution need to have been an RCMI to be eligible as an LRI for the FIRST program? 

• No.

COHORTS AND CLUSTERS

What is the expected size of a cohort that applicant institutions are expected to propose?

• A Highly Resourced Institution (HRI) needs to hire no fewer than 10 new faculty in its cohort.
• A Limited-Resourced Institution (LRI) needs to hire no fewer than 6 new faculty in its cohort.
• The number of faculty supported in a partnership cohort must be based on prior planning and what was proposed and justified in the application. If a partnership includes an HRI, it must hire no fewer than 10 new faculty. If a partnership includes two LRIs, it must hire no fewer than 6 new faculty.
• In any negotiation of the terms and conditions of award, NIH will work with awardees to ensure that the Notice of Award reflects the expectation of the appropriate number of faculty hires.

What is the difference between a cohort and a cluster?

• The cohort is the entire group of new faculty hired by an institution via this award.  
• A cluster is made up of faculty in related scientific fields and with whom closer collaboration and interaction is expected. There should be no fewer than three scientists per cluster.

NEW FACULTY

What is the timeline for the hiring of the new faculty?

• All faculty should be hired by the end of year 3 of the cohort award period.

What activities will the FIRST Cohort award support in year one? 

• The launch year is a planning year. Launch-year activities are described in the FOA. FIRST Cohort awardees may begin hiring in year one if they have the funds to do so. NIH faculty start-up funding begins in year 2 of the award.

How will faculty start-up funds be allocated?

• The faculty start-up will be allocated to the Administrative Core (maximum support for all application types) in years 2-4. Faculty start-up funds will be provided in the form of three annual allocations to the awardee institution. These funds can support both salary and research project start-up costs. Each FIRST Cohort awardee institution will determine how to allocate the faculty start-up funds.

 Who is eligible for FIRST faculty positions?

• Any individual who is competitive for a research tenure-track or equivalent faculty position and who has demonstrated a strong commitment to promoting diversity and inclusive excellence is eligible to compete for a FIRST faculty position. 
• FIRST Cohort awardees will decide their criteria for the new hires. 

What do the new faculty need to demonstrate? 

• All future FIRST faculty candidates will be required to submit a statement to the grantee institution describing their commitment to promoting diversity and inclusive excellence. Institutions will decide how to evaluate this commitment, but some tangible examples include active participation in diversity efforts, mentoring individuals from underrepresented backgrounds, volunteer activities in an underserved community, outreach activities, teaching diversity-related courses, the area of a candidate’s research e.g., research in topic areas such as health disparities and workforce diversity, other inclusive excellence activities, etc. This statement would also describe the candidate’s personal trajectory to a scientific research career and philosophy and/or approach to inclusive excellence and diversity. 

Do faculty cohort candidates need to be named/identified at the time of the application?

• No

Are institutions only expected to hire members of underrepresented groups?

• No, NIH will not require universities to hire only scientists from underrepresented groups. However, NIH will encourage FIRST applicant institutions to enhance the diversity of the FIRST faculty cohort by including candidates from groups identified as underrepresented in the biomedical, clinical, behavioral, and social sciences, some of which are described in NOT-OD-20-031, such as racial and ethnic minorities, those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, individuals with disabilities, and women at the faculty level. The NIH expects this effort to lead to the recruitment of a diverse group of talented researchers, ultimately leading to improvements in the quality of the science and discovery, as well as the training environment and the nation's capacity to address challenges in biomedical research.
   

APPLICATION SPECIFICS

Are institutions allowed to submit more than one application for this RFA?

• Only one application per institution, normally identified by having a unique DUNS number or NIH IPF number, is allowed.

What percent commitment is required of the contact PI(s)? What percent commitment is required of multi-PI(s)? 
 

• Effort Commitments: For effective leadership, individuals designated as PD(s)/PI(s) must be meaningfully committed to the program.
• Each contact PD(s)/PI(s) is expected to commit a minimum of 20% or 2.4 person months of effort per year, with a maximum of three person months effort per year.
• The effort commitment of each multi-PD(s)/PI(s) must be justified and appropriate.

What needs to be included in the Institutional Support Letter? 

• Institutional Support: Applications must include written "Letters of Support" from the institution leadership and, if a partnership application, from the leaderships of each of the applicant institutions (e.g., President, Dean) to show support of the FIRST Cohort program. This is likely to include commitment of additional resources necessary to ensure that the program will have the maximum success and sustainability. Specifically, institutional leaders must provide detailed statements of both short- and long-term commitment and list the specific resources being provided, including supplemental funding to start-up packages and professional development, laboratory and administrative space, protected time for research independent of grant funding, and access to core resources within the institution. These statements should also identify the specific number of faculty hires expected and commitment to sustainable institutional culture change. The letter must clearly explain how the institution(s) would monitor these efforts and specific steps and procedures to ensure the institution(s) achieve the planned goals and objectives.This “Institutional Letter of Support” must be included in the Letters of Support of the application appendix.". 

All Letters of Support must be uploaded to the Appendix. The required "Institutional Letter of Support" must be included in “Letters of Support” and must include the following specific items:

• Statement detailing the effort of commitment of the designated PD(s)/PI(s); 
• Statement of the activities that each faculty listed as Key Personnel is being released from (e.g., teaching, mentor, sponsor, clinical, administrative duties), including a statement as to whether the costs of this “released time” are shared or not between partnering institutions;
• Statement that details provisions for recruitment of new faculty members, including supplemental funds for startup and professional development and expected number of faculty to be hired;
• Statement that details provisions to leverage funds for long-term sustainability of FIRST Cohort-supported activities.
• Statement detailing if an institution is applying as an LRI and demonstration that the institution meets the LRI criteria.  

Can an application include letters of support in additional to the Institutional Letter?

• Yes.

Can an application be submitted as a multi-institutional proposal utilizing sub-awards?

• Yes.

Will this FIRST Cohort RFA be reissued?

• Yes. NIH expects that this RFA will be reissued two more times. The program is expected to fund 12 awards over the next three years, contingent upon the availability of funds. 
  NIH anticipates that institutions applying to the FIRST Cohort FOA in March 2021 will receive summary statements in enough time to work with program to incorporate reviewer feedback into a revised application for resubmission.  

Are institutions eligible to apply to both the FIRST Cohort and FIRST CEC RFAs?    

• Yes, however, an institution can only be awarded one or the other. If an applicant receives a FIRST CEC Award, they will not be eligible to receive a FIRST Cohort Award, and vice versa. 

What is the relationship between the FIRST Cohort awardees and the FIRST CEC awardee?

• Each FIRST Cohort awardee will be responsible for evaluating its own FIRST program. Each FIRST Cohort awardee will be responsible for collecting quantitative and qualitative data e.g., focus groups, observations of processes, and collecting survey data and sharing the data with the FIRST CEC. The FIRST CEC will coordinate with FIRST Cohort awardees to collect the necessary data and conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the program. The FIRST CEC, in collaboration with the FIRST Cohort awardees, will identify and harmonize a minimum set of common data elements to be used by each of the FIRST Cohort awardees to evaluate the faculty and the institutional culture. While FIRST Cohort awardees must implement the set of common data elements identified by the FIRST CEC, they may also add measures of interest to their research team and institution. The FIRST CEC will lead the development of the final FIRST Data Sharing Plan to be developed in conjunction with FIRST Cohort awardees post award.

CONTACT AND ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Who is the program contact for the FIRST Cohort RFA?

Sanya A. Springfield, Ph.D.
National Cancer Institute
Telephone: 240-276-6170
Email: FIRSTNIH@nih.gov 

What is a Cooperative Agreement? What should we expect? 

• The administrative and funding instrument used for this program will be the cooperative agreement, an "assistance" mechanism (rather than an "acquisition" mechanism), in which substantial NIH programmatic involvement with the awardees is anticipated during the performance of the activities. Under the cooperative agreement, the NIH purpose is to support and stimulate the recipients' activities by involvement in and otherwise working jointly with the award recipients in a partnership role; it is not to assume direction, prime responsibility, or a dominant role in the activities. Consistent with this concept, the dominant role and prime responsibility resides with the awardees for the project as a whole, although specific tasks and activities may be shared among the awardees and the NIH.

Is this Common Fund’s FIRST program directly related to the recent notice NOT-GM-21-008: Support for Research Excellence - First Independent Research Support & Transition (SuRE-FIRST)?

• No. The NIH is committed to fostering diversity in the biomedical workforce. As such there are many independent programs and initiatives all related to this goal. 

FIRST COHORT (RFA-RM20-022) FIRST COHORT (RFA-RM20-022)

FIRST COORDINATION AND EVALUATION CENTER (CEC) (RFA-RM-20-023)
 

Will the FIRST CEC be expected to evaluate each FIRST Cohort awardee program?

• No, the FIRST CEC is not expected to evaluate each FIRST Cohort awardee. Rather, the FIRST CEC, working collaboratively with the FIRST Cohort awardees, will develop common data elements that FIRST Cohort awardee institutions will collect and provide to the FIRST CEC to conduct an objective evaluation of the program.

Will the FIRST CEC be expected to come up with common data elements toward each FIRST program goals?

• FIRST CEC applicants may suggest a set of common data elements in their application, however the FIRST CEC awardee will be expected to collaborate with FIRST Cohort institutions post award to refine, finalize and harmonize common data elements that will be used by each institution to facilitate a comprehensive evaluation of the FIRST program goals.

Will the FIRST CEC’s evaluation be expected to compare any of the cohorts to a comparator or control group? 

• No, the FIRST CEC is not expected to identify a comparator group.

My institution wishes to apply to the FIRST CEC and will propose a comparator group in order to complete a comprehensive evaluation. Is this OK?

• While this is allowed, a comparator group is not expected or required. 

Does the FIRST CEC awardee need to be either an LRI and HRI? 

• No. Any institution with the appropriate expertise may apply to RFA-RM-023.

Are institutions allowed to submit more than one application for this RFA?

• Only one application per institution, normally identified by having a unique DUNS number or NIH IPF number, is allowed.

Are institutions eligible to apply to both the FIRST Cohort and FIRST CEC RFAs?    

• Yes, however, an institution can only be awarded one or the other. If an applicant receives a FIRST CEC Award, they will not be eligible to receive a FIRST Cohort Award, and vice versa. 

Will the FIRST CEC have oversight and coordination responsibilities for FIRST Cohort awardees, or are the FIRST Cohort awardees expected to provide analysis of outcomes, best practices, etc., independently?

• The FIRST CEC is expected to coordinate the activities of FIRST Cohort awardees and facilitate the development of strategies to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the FIRST program. FIRST Cohort awardees are expected to collect common data and submit that data to the FIRST CEC for independent analysis.

Will the FIRST CEC RFA be reissued?

• Currently NIH is planning to reissue the FIRST CEC RFA in four years.

What is a Cooperative Agreement? What should we expect? 

• The administrative and funding instrument used for this program will be the cooperative agreement, an "assistance" mechanism (rather than an "acquisition" mechanism), in which substantial NIH programmatic involvement with the awardees is anticipated during the performance of the activities. Under the cooperative agreement, the NIH purpose is to support and stimulate the recipients' activities by involvement in and otherwise working jointly with the award recipients in a partnership role; it is not to assume direction, prime responsibility, or a dominant role in the activities. Consistent with this concept, the dominant role and prime responsibility resides with the awardees for the project as a whole, although specific tasks and activities may be shared among the awardees and the NIH.

Who is the program contact for the FIRST CEC RFA?

Rina Das, PhD.
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
Telephone: 301-496-3996 
Email: FIRSTNIH@nih.gov 

FIRST COORDINATION AND EVALUATION CENTER (CEC) (RFA-RM-20-023)  FIRST COORDINATION AND EVALUATION CENTER (CEC) (RFA-RM-20-023)