NIH Effort Reporting Clarification

last updated 06/18/08

On August 3, 2004, the NIH issued an important policy announcement concerning effort reporting and NIH career development (K) awards, entitled “Determining Full-Time Professional Effort for Career Awards”. As cited in the announcement, NIH had previously defined the basis for the effort commitment made to K awards (in most cases, 75%) as encompassing the entirety of an investigator’s professional commitments, both within and outside the application institution. In response to institutions citing this as problematic, the NIH has determined to change its policy.  The actual language in the announcement states that:

“[T]he following policy will now be applied to all K awards: a career award recipient meets the required commitment of total professional effort as long as: 1) the individual has a full-time appointment with the applicant organization; and 2) the minimum percentage of the candidate’s commitment required for the proposed career award experience is covered by that appointment.”

While the language is not especially clear, the objective of this change is to make the basis for effort on K awards consistent with the basis for effort on other NIH award mechanisms.  Accordingly, at Northwestern, this means that:

• The basis for an NIH K award effort commitment is Northwestern University (NU) and, if applicable, Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF) effort. [100% effort = NU+NMFF]
• For a K recipient who holds both NU and NMFF appointments, the NU appointment (and salary) percentage must be at least equal to the K award commitment (typically 75%). If the individual has other NU activities (sponsored projects outside of those related to the K award, proposal preparation, teaching, University administration, etc.), then the NU appointment and salary percentage must be even greater.  
• If the individual also has a Veterans Administration (VA) appointment, or an appointment at another entity, the associated commitment is no longer in the effort basis for K awards and need not be considered when determining whether the candidate can meet the K award effort commitment.

Although appointments at/commitments to the VA or other organizations no longer needs to be considered, it is still critical that the existence of such appointments be disclosed in proposals and that a current VA MoU be on file. In response to NIH’s policy change, we have modified the standard disclosure statements for proposals (eliminating the separate statement for K proposals, which is no longer necessary) as well as the VA MoU instructions and worksheet. These can be found at: and .

Finally, the NIH announcement states that the policy change is only applicable to applications and resubmissions submitted on or after October 1, 2004. Therefore, investigators with existing K awards must continue to meet the K effort commitment on the basis of total professional commitments, including any VA appointment.

The full text of the August 3 NIH announcement appears on the web at and will be published in a future issue of the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts.

If you have questions regarding the NIH policy change or effort reporting in general, please contact Jennifer Wei at (847) 467-2473 or jennifer-wei@northwestern.edu . If you have questions regarding the preparation of a specific proposal for a K or other NIH mechanism, please contact Bruce Elliott at (312) 503-7955 or b-elliott@northwestern.edu