MIRA Welcome Letter

Dear NIGMS Investigator:

Congratulations on receiving an NIGMS Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award (MIRA). This message offers some tips and reminders that we hope you will find useful. Keep in mind that all NIH policies apply as usual, but the MIRA award has some important differences from other award types. MIRAs are intended to support research in an investigator's laboratory that falls within the mission of NIGMS. More detailed tips and reminders can be found on our website and the links below. We encourage you to contact your Program Officer if you have any questions about your grant or if you get exciting results and want to share the good news.

We also encourage you to familiarize yourself with NIGMS' funding polices, particularly those for awardees with multiple NIGMS grants and for investigators with substantial other support. Keep in mind that MIRA awardees, with a few exceptions, cannot receive any other NIGMS research support. Although the MIRA allows flexibility to follow important new research directions as opportunities arise, as your research progresses, you should keep the NIGMS scientific mission in mind and contact your program officer if your research is leading in a direction that may put future work outside the NIGMS scope. Finally, the research you do with the MIRA award cannot overlap with research done via other sources of support. Contact your PO if you have questions.

You can find your summary statement (SS) and Notice of Award (NoA) in the NIH Commons. Your SS is likely to contain comments and suggestions that could be helpful in improving your MIRA research program. The NoA has important information about your MIRA, including the project and budget period start and end dates, the awarded dollar amount, and specific terms and conditions of the award. Additionally, the NoA also has current contact information about your NIGMS program official and NIGMS grants management staff. Although the MIRA allows flexibility to follow important new research directions as opportunities arise, any new research directions must remain within the NIGMS mission. Contact your NIGMS program officer if you have questions about your research plans.

As a principal investigator with an active NIGMS award you may be eligible to apply for the following types of supplements, depending on the type of award you have. Check with your program officer before applying to determine which supplements are applicable to your award.

For the latest news from NIGMS, including updates about our programs, funding opportunities, and other resources, we strongly encourage you to subscribe to the Feedback Loop blog. You can receive blog updates as they happen or as a digest. You can also follow NIGMS on LinkedIn​​​.

You are required to acknowledge NIH/NIGMS support of your research in journal articles, oral or poster presentations, news releases, interviews with reporters and other communications. It is important to do this so taxpayers understand that money budgeted to NIH results in research advances made by scientists throughout the country. If you have more than one grant, only cite the one(s) that supported the research described in the article or presentation.

Here is an example of the language to use:

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01GM085232.

As required by the NIH public access policy, submit manuscripts accepted for publication to NIH PubMed Central.


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