12
- Employment history in reverse chronological order dates, places, nature of position, profes-
sional experience, honors. List only relevant publications in chronological order, titles and
complete references (include all authors).
- List all staff, professional and nonprofessional, even when not requesting salary. Reviewers
appreciate your giving estimates of the effort (not salary) for each person.
Budget
Reviewers evaluate a requested budget for whether it is realistic and justified by the aims and meth-
ods of the project. Complete the budget section after you have written your research plan and have
a good idea of costs.
Request only enough money to do the work. Significant over- or underestimating suggests that you
may not understand the scope of the proposed work. Avoid requesting expensive equipment unless
you absolutely need it, and justify it well. Dont request funds for equipment that is already listed in
the resources section, unless you can provide an adequate explanation. Reviewers look for any
discrepancies and will delete funds for equipment that should be available to you.
Also, make sure you calculate the salary of the principal investigator (PI), taking into account the
government cap of $125,900.
Modular grants
NIHs adoption of the modular approach for most grant types involves changes to the applications
budget section. Prepare a modular grant application if you are requesting $250,000 a year or less for
direct costs (more expensive applications are nonmodular) for the grant types listed on the bottom
of page 14.
Request monies in $25,000 modules. Generally, you request the same number of modules each year
except for special needs, such as equipment.
Modular changes are not reflected in the PHS 398 April 98 edition, and therefore you do not use
the budget form pages. Go the NIH modular Web site at http://www.nih.gov/grants/fund-
ing/modular/modular.htm for sample modular budget pages. And check the NIH Guide for
future changes.
NB: Be sure to build any funding increases you foresee into the request. Under the modular system,
there is no routine funding escalation for future years. You must plan for the cost of the entire
project when applying. This is a major departure from the traditional process, in which grantees
received inflation-based annual budget increases.
Resources
The resources section is a critical part of your application. Show reviewers that you have the neces-
sary equipment, space, support staff, and other facilities to conduct the research. Dont assume that
reviewers know your facilities have gas, vacuum, centrifuges, scintillation counters, gel apparatus,
computers, autoclaves, shop, animal facilities, secretarial and financial support, or anything else you
need for your research.