The effort to double the NIH budget over the past several years resulted in relatively large increases each year in the funds available to NIGMS for research. These increases have allowed the Institute to pursue many exciting and important research opportunities. However, the recent increases in the number and size of NIGMS's research grant awards (many of which are 4- and 5-year projects) carry with them commitments for several years of future funding. If not managed carefully, these funding commitments could constrain the Institute's ability to make new and competing renewal awards in the years ahead.
To manage its future-year commitments more effectively, NIGMS will apply "commitment management" to some of its competing R01 awards beginning in FY 2002. Grants to which commitment management is applied will receive the same total level of funding over the 4- or 5-year life of the grant as they would have received otherwise. However, under commitment management, NIGMS will distribute the funds over the life of the grant so that more of the funds are awarded in the first fiscal year of the project period, thereby reducing the Institute's commitments in future years. The application of commitment management is independent of any programmatic reductions from requested levels.
The example below shows how the annual budgets of a 4-year grant award would be allocated under commitment management. Note that the total awarded amount for the project ($600,000) does not change as a result of commitment management:
| |
Annual Award (Direct Costs) |
Total
Project |
| FY 2002 |
FY 2003 |
FY 2004 |
FY 2005 |
| Typical Funding |
$150,000 |
$150,000 |
$150,000 |
$150,000 |
$600,000 |
Commitment
Management |
$157,500 |
$150,000 |
$150,000 |
$142,500 |
$600,000 |
Note that in this example 5 percent of the funds that would normally have been committed for FY 2005 ($7,500) are instead committed in FY 2002, a year in which NIGMS’s budget increase has been relatively generous. While this results in a small reduction in the number of competing awards that NIGMS can make in FY 2002, it allows the Institute greater flexibility to make competing awards in FY 2005 and helps stabilize application success rates across fiscal years. It also gives investigators more funds earlier in the project, providing them with additional flexibility to manage their resources and enabling them to take advantage of scientific opportunities as they occur. In keeping with current practice, grantees will continue to be responsible for ensuring that funds are managed appropriately over the life of the project.
To provide as much clarity as possible in NIGMS's procedures for commitment management, we have developed a list of Commitment Management Frequently Asked Questions.