September 3, 2020

Award Opportunity: NCI Outstanding Investigator Award; deadline is Sept. 7

Internal pre-applications due September 7th

These instructions are for VUMC applicants only.

Award Overview

The National Cancer Institute has announced the R35 Outstanding Investigator Award (OIA): PAR-20-278. Faculty with outstanding records of productivity in any area of cancer research are eligible. The OIA will support investigators with up to $600,000 in direct costs per year for 7 years, to provide funding stability and encourage investigators to embark on breakthrough projects of unusual potential in cancer research. The projects should break new ground or extend previous discoveries toward new directions or applications that may lead to a breakthrough in biomedical, behavioral, or clinical cancer research.

 The NCI requests a Letter of Intent by October 7, 2020, and full applications are due November 6, 2020. Please note that a pre-application is required prior to LOI submission.

 Eligibility Requirements

  • Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) with outstanding cancer research productivity during the last 5 consecutive calendar years.
  • PD/PI must have been a PD/PI or Project Leader of a research project, excluding cores, on an eligible NCI research grant(s) continuously since September 2015. Eligible NCI grant mechanisms are defined as R01, R15, R33, R37, P01, P50, U01, U54, UM1, U19, U10, DP1, and DP2.
  • Applicants are required to devote at least 6 person months effort to the OIA. Applicants with administrative responsibilities or other duties inconsistent with this time commitment may apply but must reduce those other commitments to accept the award.
  • PDs/PIs with effort on other grant support will be expected to provide, as part of the Just-in-Time information, a detailed explanation describing how effort on other grants will be adjusted to permit 6 person months on the OIA.

 Internal Review and Approval Process

All applications to the OIA must contain an institutional letter of nomination. You must be approved prior to LOI submission to be considered for nomination. To begin the approval and nomination process, submit the following to amy.f.martinez@vumc.org no later than September 7th:

  1. Summary of proposed research strategy (max 2 pages)
    1. Required: Must include descriptive title of proposed activity, list of key personnel, and participating institution(s)
    2. Recommended: May include evidence of PD/PI programmatic contributions, research program description, and overview of future research program
  2. NIH Biosketch
  3. Brief statement from department chair indicating “a clear and continuing substantial institutional commitment to the PD/PI beyond the normal level extended by the Institution to faculty, for example, providing 20% salary support for the duration of the award.”

If you have any questions, contact Amy Martinez, PhD (amy.f.martinez@vumc.org) in the VUMC Office of Research.