NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The National Institutes of Health on Friday released a number of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding announcements, including requests for applications for the shared instruments and high-end instruments programs, and for projects to improve and renovate core labs and research labs.
NIH released notices for a flurry of programs containing $300 million for shared instruments purchases, $160 million for purchases of high-end research tools, $1 billion for renovating core facilities, and $1 billion for improving extramural research facilities.
The Core Facility Renovation, Repair, and Improvement Program will lay out the $1 billion it has to spend through grants ranging between $1 million and $10 million. These grants will be used to construct, renovate, or repair existing non-Federal research facilities. These activities may include purchasing general purpose equipment, alterations and renovation funds, or both. However, NIH noted that specialized equipment over $100,000 in cost cannot be requested as part of this FOA.
The total project period for an award made in response to this FOA may not exceed five years.
The Extramural Research Facilities Improvement Program will give between $2 million and $15 million for grants to expand, remodel, renovate, or alter biomedical or behavioral research facilities. They will support the costs of improving non-federal basic research, clinical research, and animal facilities in order to meet institutions' research needs.
The High-End Instrumentation Program will commit $160 million to fund roughly 40 awards for purchasing equipment for biomedical research that costs over $600,000. The maximum award will be $8 million. These instruments could include a wide variety of research tools, including but not limited to high-resolution mass spectrometers, supercomputers, structural and functional imaging systems, macromolecular NMR spectrometers, and other high-cost research instruments.
The Shared Instrumentation Grant Program will give awards to pay for tools that cost in a range of $100,000 to $500,000. These instruments could include but are not limited to mass spectrometers, supercomputers, NMR spectrometers, biomedical imagers, electron microscopes, and others.