Whoa!!

[rivka]

I just got a call from our grants administrator. My grant application will be proceeding to scientific review along with everyone else's.

*deep breath*

Both Jackie (the grants administrator) and I spent most of Tuesday calling around, trying to figure out what should happen next.

The grant application listed three "contacts" - two scientific, and one administrative. Monday afternoon, I had spoken to the administrative contact, who was completely unhelpful. He said he was sure that nothing could be done once a grant was late, unless it was for technical problems with grants.gov. He reminded me that this is an ongoing program, and that I was free to submit for the next deadline, in September.

Tuesday morning, I tried one of the scientific contacts. She was great. Very sympathetic, very practical. I told her that I intended to submit the grant late, with an explanatory cover letter, and she walked me through what would happen next. She dug up the name of the person in charge of "Receipt and Referral" at NIH, and said that "as an NIH insider," she advised me to have my grants administrator or someone from the Dean's office call that person to introduce/follow up my cover letter. (Don't make the call yourself, she implied very clearly but did not say.)

Believe it or not, the same person who left early on Monday? Was called away on Tuesday morning at 10am to deal with a family emergency, and was out the rest of the day. Mercifully, she called in to the Office of Research and Development at about 4pm Tuesday afternoon to tell them to go ahead and submit the grant without her signature. The NIH system accepted it, which was a relief - we had feared that it might be automatically set up to reject late applications.

Jackie tried to call the Receipt and Referral person on Tuesday. Out of the office until Thursday, she was told. And so we fretted.

She called today. Aaaaaaand... get this: my grant wasn't even flagged as "late" in the system. The woman looked at the grant, looked at my cover letter, and said, "This all looks good. She should be fine."

Competition is so fierce for these things that my chances of actually being awarded the grant are still very slim. I'm well aware of that. But at least, now I have the opportunity to fail on my own merits. And right now that feels like a victory.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Whew. What a nightmare.

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

Oh phew!!!

Um, it sounds like the position that woman fills needs some redundancy!

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Woot! It's a blow against passive-aggressive fucktards everywhere.

[jenett]

WOOOOOOO!

Yay for people being sensible in other stages of the process. (I hoped they would be, because you know this can't be an uncommon situation, but I know much less about the grants process than you do. Just academia in general.)

[melebeth]

YAY! I'm so relieved for you!

[dlacey.livejournal.com]

That's really good news. I'm glad to hear it worked out this way.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Oh thank goodness. That is such a relief.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaay!

[elynne.livejournal.com]

*is quietly pleased for your sake*

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful.

And after having spent the morning dealing with my own university's combination of key people being on vacation and passive-aggressive fucktards (resulting in my research assistant not being able to be paid for the month of May, but that's another story), I can now take hope in the universe again.

-J

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

That is such good news. You might get it (I hope you do), you might not, but you're beaten the system.

[geekchick]

Excellent news! Good luck with it.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

That's great! I'm so relieved for you. Good luck!

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay. :) What a relief!

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

*whew!*

So glad to hear it!

N.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Thanks be.

[puppytown.livejournal.com]

*cheer*

[boxofdelights]

I'm so glad.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

To quote matociquala, "WIKTORY!".

I know the competition for grants is intense, but getting yours read with the others is a huge win. Three cheers for the scientific contact who gave you good advice, the person in the Dean's office who told them to proceed, Jackie, and the Receipt and Referral person!

[lissamc.livejournal.com]

Yay!!

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you for going forward.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that I was holding my breath for you until I let it out in relief.

Yay!

[annaoj.livejournal.com]

Wonderful news!

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Glad they expect bungling

[kate_nepveu]

Woo! What a relief. Good luck on the grant itself! How long will the review process take?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

How long will the review process take?

It's a multistage process. In June or July, my grant will go (with a bunch of others) to a "study section," a group of about 20 scientists who are more or less in my field. Three of them will be assigned to read my particular grant, and two of them will be assigned to do a written critique.

If all three of them agree that my grant application is in the lower half of the pool, it won't ever be discussed at the study section. This is known as being "unscored." Otherwise, the assigned reviewers present it at the study section and everyone there gets to assign a score from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning "highest priority." They'll average the individual ratings to get my total "priority score."

Right after the meeting, in June or July, I'll get told my priority score, and also given a percentile ranking. That will give me some idea of how likely I am to get funding - but I'll only be able to judge that with confidence if my score is very high or very low. About a month later, they'll release my "pink sheets" - written critiques from my reviewers, plus a summary of the discussion at the study section. If these are not so good, I will immediately start work on a resubmission.

If I do reasonably well coming out of the study section, my grant will be assigned to a specific Institute within NIH. That Institute's Advisory Council will review the grants again to judge their public health value and their contributions to the Institute's goals. That will happen in September or October.

Shortly after that, they'll issue an announcement that they're planning to fund all grants with a priority score greater than X. That's when I'll really know, absolutely, for sure.

My earliest start date for the study is December 1.

Hooray!

[hazelchaz]

And thanks for the inside look at the process.

Fannish tie-in: "If all three of them agree that my grant application is in the lower half of the pool" sounds like the equivalent of the WSFS Business Meeting's "Object to consideration" process.

[lizardling.livejournal.com]

WOO HOO! Glad to hear that you and the lovely Jackie managed to get the grant into the stack.

[eeyorerin]

Oh, excellent. It's like the opposite of that ...ahem...other gentleman in question.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

All right!

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

That's better news than I had thought possible at this point.

Good luck.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

Hallelujah!

(Handel, not Cohhen. Oh, hell, knock yourself out. Have 'em both. [Just not together; I don't think they're musically compatible.])

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

thats great news. I'll cross fingers and toes for the next bit!

[redbird]

Oh, good.

Yes, this feels like a victory.

YAY!

[tendyl.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that your grant made it into the system. Good luck with getting awarded that grant!

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Wheeeeeeee!!!!!!!!! I'm really glad you didn't get penalised for an unavoidable admin problem that was in no way your fault, and that in no way invalidates the legitimacy of your application.

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

Hey, good news ...

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Well done, you and Jackie. I'm glad that someone in the system who has the scope for common sense actually used it.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Most excellent news.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

PHEW. That's excellent news! Our administrators are extremely efficient, and not a day goes by when I don't give thanks to that.

FWIW, should you ever be involved in a project that's part-funded by the European Union, then know that they are extremely, but EXTREMELY strict about the day and the hour when their electronic submissions close. They even advise you to put placeholder drafts in place just in case the system collapses on the last day.