The study section gave your application a competitive score, and now you’ve been asked to submit Just-in-Time (JIT) information about your other sources of funding, including active and pending support for key personnel on the application. Why do we request this information?
First, for all applications that might be funded, we check the JIT information for scientific overlap with the investigators’ active grants from NIH and other funding sources, since we can’t provide support for a project that’s already being funded.
Second, as directed by the NIGMS Advisory Council, we give additional scrutiny to new and competing renewal applications from investigators whose total research support, including the pending award, exceeds $750,000 or more in annual direct costs. These applications require special analysis and documentation from NIGMS staff to justify why the project is highly meritorious, and they are discussed by the Advisory Council.
Finally, we may use the information about other research support to decide which grants to recommend for funding and to establish the budget level of the award. As you may know, NIGMS does not rely solely on a percentile cutoff or “payline” to make funding decisions. We also consider other factors, including career stage, perceived impact of the proposed work, summary statement comments and the other funding available to the investigator.
I hope this post helps provide some context for how we use JIT information and why it is important that your JIT information is complete, accurate and submitted promptly after the request so as not to delay the funding decision. Additional JIT information is available on the NIH and NIGMS Web sites and from your program director.