Q. How many years should an applicant request if he or she has already received support from a CTSA institutional K award (KL2)?
A. The announcement PA-11-009 states that current and former recipients of CTSA KL2 support may apply for the K23, provided they have had no more than 3 years of KL2 support by the time that the K23 is awarded. The combined total of KL2 plus K23 support must not exceed 6 years. Institutional K12 awards would be handled the same way as KL2 awards. Recipients of other individual career development awards (K01, K07, K08, K22, K23 or K25 grants) or the equivalent are not eligible.
Q. What should an applicant anticipate if he or she wants to apply for an R01 grant?
A. Awardees of individual K23s may apply for R01 support at any time during their K award, and if the R01 is awarded, they can keep both the R and the K and decrease their percent effort to as low as 50% effort on the K but only during the last 2 years of the K award – see Guide Notice http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-065.html. The purpose of this policy is to prevent awardees from immediately applying for an R award successfully (which would imply they never needed the career development award).