Allowable Costs

U.S. investigators may request funds (including re-entry grants) to support research projects in the trainees' home country that emanate from the M.S. and Ph.D. training program. The research supported (1) must be one of the requirements in fulfillment of a M.S. or Ph.D. degree or part of advanced research training; (2) be relevant to an HIV/AIDS or related TB problem in the trainee's country; and (3) may form the basis for a long-term collaboration funded by future research grant support.

Grantee institutions may request facilities and administrative (F&A) cost allowance based on 8 percent of the total allowable direct costs exclusive of tuition and related fees and expenditures for equipment. The total allowable cost (direct and indirect) per grant in the first year of this five year award must not exceed $500,000 for competing renewals (and $625,000 including a recompeting TB supplement) and $300,000 for new starts. Applicants should assume a budget increase of 3 percent per year for each succeeding year (subject to availability of funds). While applicants may develop programs at or close to these limits, they are strongly encouraged to pursue the most cost-effective approaches for implementing these programs. The intent is to award an estimated six to seven new and competing renewal grants, depending upon the quality of the approved grant applications and the availability of funds and an estimated 20 competing supplements.

Before any funds can be expended for in-country activities from this award, the grantee institution must show evidence of approval for collaborative research between the U.S. and foreign countries and institutions included in the program through an endorsement from the Minister of Health or other appropriate government official as well as from the collaborating institutions.

The following cost categories are allowable for reimbursement under this program. It should be noted that the following stipends and allowances are maximums and applicant institutions are encouraged to design the most cost-effective programs, generally at lesser amounts:

Stipend and Salary

Living allowance (stipend) comparable to trainee's professional level, but not to exceed $45,000 per annum while undergoing training in the U.S.;

Living allowance (stipend) while conducting in-country dissertation research or in-country advanced research training (re-entry grants) at a level comparable to that received by similar professionals in-country, but also not to exceed $45,000 per annum;

Stipend support (not to exceed $45,000 per year) for foreign and U.S. postdoctoral researchers;

Support (pro-rated salary, up to 25 percent of annual salary [calculated against current salary cap], not including fringe benefits), to enable U.S. faculty to be involved in advanced research training activities conducted in-country;

Program director's salary (up to 25 percent of annual salary [calculated against current salary cap] not including fringe benefits); and

Salary for clerical and administrative support staff (up to 2.0 FTE, but not more than 10 percent of direct costs, not including fringe benefits).

Tuition

Tuition, not to exceed 20 percent of total direct costs. Exceptions to this policy require prior approval from the FIC.

Travel

Round trip economy class air fare between the U.S. and home country (two trips for M.S./Ph.D. candidates and advanced research trainees, one for all others);

 

Travel and per diem for the program director and faculty colleagues to provide guidance to students conducting dissertation-related field studies and/or advanced research training in their home countries; and

Travel and per diem for faculty presenting short-term, in-country courses.

Training-Related Expenses

Allowance for the grantee institution of up to $600 monthly per trainee to cover health insurance, scientific meetings, and incidental research expenses;

Support of up to $15,000 for in-country field research in partial fulfillment of the M.S./Ph.D training program; and

Research support of up to $25,000 per trainee to facilitate the conduct of advanced research training (re-entry grants) in the home country conducted by current and/or former trainees; the program director is expected to have projects submitted for this funding peer reviewed by the U.S. institution in accordance with plans outlined in the grant application and for assurance that any required single project assurances are obtained before the collection of identifiable data, or biological samples.

Other

Up to 10 percent of allowable direct costs may be used to cover collaboration with other developed countries when the object of that collaboration involves work in a common developing country;

Up to 10 percent of allowable direct costs may be used to establish or enhance an international component within an existing Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR) or P30 program, with the goal to support developmental in-country research by U.S. and foreign collaborators which would lead to newly funded research awards (on a cost-sharing basis with the CFAR paying expenses for U.S. and AITRP for foreign collaborators) and also to facilitate international career development opportunities for U.S. postdoctoral health scientists;

Up to 10 percent of allowable direct costs may be utilized to support coordination and communications activities, including attendance at meetings for this purpose;

As described more fully under "Expanded Activities" below, Up to $300,000 additional (total funds) may be requested in aggregate for expanded activities in special areas as outlined below with no single request to exceed $75,000 and $100,000 for collaboration with CFARs. (With regard to collaborations with CFARs, the funds would be added to AITRP programs to pay for training of foreign scientists and for foreign components of training-related research. CFARs would be expected to pay for support of U.S. scientists and research costs in the United States).

In keeping with the intent to maintain a flexible program, requests for administrative supplemental budget increases of up to 20 percent of funded levels in a given budget year for the expansion of prior approved activities will be allowed to meet special needs and take advantage of unusual opportunities. Such requests, which will be reviewed by program staff, also may be subjected to external peer review and support will depend upon availability of funds. In addition, in response to compelling needs and/or research opportunities, programs may be requested to take on additional responsibilities within the general scope of the award, on mutually agreeable terms and conditions. Programs are strongly encouraged to discuss any supplemental budget requests with FIC program staff prior to submitting a request.

Expanded Activities

Subject to availability of funds, existing programs may request up to $300,000 total for expanded activities in special areas which must be linked to one or more existing NIH-funded research efforts with no individual request exceeding $75,000 total costs and $100,000 total costs for collaboration with CFARs.

Examples include special training, training-related research and overall research capacity building efforts to support behaviorally-based interventions linked to the new NIMH international cooperative agreement program utilizing popular opinion leaders to reduce HIV transmission at the community level; research capacity building linked to pending international awards under the NIAID Prevention Trials Network (PTN) and Vaccine Trials Network (VTN) programs. (Applicants will be invited to submit these proposals after the initial peer review of VTN and PTN awards have been completed at which time those VTN and PTN programs most likely to be funded will be known.); international collaborations with awardees under the CFAR Program at the same or another institution (on a cost-sharing basis); prevention training and research capacity building in support of reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission (including operational research and cost-effectiveness analysis for newly discovered approaches to decrease perinatal mother-to-child HIV transmission as well as HIV transmission via breast milk); tuberculosis (if an applicant does not already hold an AITRP or ITREID-associated supplemental TB award); training and capacity building to address the problem of blood safety in low and middle income countries including risks of HIV and hepatitis C transmission associated with injecting drug use; training and research capacity building related to the conduct of clinical trials including multisite clinical trials of affordable antiretroviral and non-antiretroviral interventions to slow HIV disease progression and improve health outcome for HIV-infected adults and children living in developing countries; training and research capacity building related to oral health manifestations of HIV disease and training and research capacity building related to HIV-associated malignancies.

In addition to the above, competing supplement applications are also allowable for geographic expansions for India, China, Africa and Russia (including newly independent states of the former Soviet Union). AITRP programs previously awarded administrative supplements in FY 1999 for geographic expansions for China and India and capacity building linked to the new NIMH cooperative agreement program are encouraged to apply for these competing supplements. As noted above, competing supplemental budget requests in aggregate cannot exceed $300,000 (total costs).

Any proposal for expanded activities must link efforts to specifically identified and currently active (12 months at time of application) or pending awards for research grants, cooperative agreements, and/or contracts supported by other ICDs, e.g., NIAID, NICHD, NCI, NIDCR, NIDA, and NIMH, including CFAR awards as noted above. In case of supplemental requests linked to pending awards, support of those requests is contingent upon receipt of that award. Prospective applicants for supplemental funding are strongly encouraged to discuss their proposals with FIC and potentially other IC program staff prior to submission to determine the level of FIC interest in such proposals.

Applications for competing supplements should be submitted as individual proposals with a separate face page, budget page, budget justification as well as an executive summary, with the total proposal not to exceed 10 pages in length.

The following criteria will be considered in evaluating the scientific merit of each competing supplement proposal:

The need for the specific research training proposed;

Relevance of the proposed research training to strengthening scientific efforts in the related area of research;

The clarity and feasibility of the research training objectives;

Appropriateness of the mentor(s) and candidate(s) (if named) for the project;

Adequacy of the research training plan to achieve the proposed objectives;

Adequacy of the collaboration between the U.S. and foreign scientists and their institutions to provide a suitable framework and environment in which the proposed training is to occur; and

The extent to which the currently funded training program(s) and associated NIH research efforts will be enhanced by the supplemental award.

Future Areas of Interest

Subject to availability of funding, FIC will also consider future proposals for supplemental funding in the areas of research ethics, clinical research, the relationship between health and economic development, as well as training in the pharmaceutical and related sciences to provide developing countries with the technologic capability to manufacture (within existing international laws and guidelines) affordable pharmaceutical products necessary to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission and to treat HIV/AIDS and associated opportunistic infections. Applicants should not, however, submit proposals in these areas until FIC indicates that funding is available and for which purposes.