Worta McCaskill-Stevens Career Development Award for Community Oncology and Prevention Research (K12)

Frequently Asked Questions

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The purpose of the NCI Worta McCaskill-Stevens Career Development Award for Community Oncology and Prevention Research K12 is to support the training of clinical scientists in community cancer prevention, screening, intervention, control, and treatment research. Special emphasis is placed on training clinical scientists whose career goal is to improve the care and outcomes of minority health populations and populations with health disparities that are underrepresented in clinical research by increasing their access to and representation as human subjects in cancer clinical trials using an equity lens.

The McCaskill-Stevens K12 allows appointment of Scholars proposing to serve as the lead investigator of an independent community-based clinical trial; proposing to increase the integration of cancer health disparities research questions into clinical trials; or proposing a separate ancillary study to an existing prevention, screening, intervention, control or treatment trial; or proposing to gain research experience in a community-based clinical trial led by another investigator; or proposing to serve as leader of innovative clinical trial approaches that expand engagement of minority health populations and populations with health disparities that are underrepresented as human subjects in cancer clinical trials, as part of their research and career development. The K12 award provides up to 5 years of support and is renewable.

The NCI is offering an opportunity for current NCI K12 awardees to submit an application for an administrative supplement to support an additional scholar who is establishing a career in improving the health outcomes of people with HIV and cancer. Applications must be submitted by October 30, 2024. For details, refer to the Notice of Special Interest NOT-CA-24-081.

Note: The details on this page are for informational purposes only. Please read and follow all requirements and instructions in the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) before applying for an award. Application review information is described in the funding opportunity. If you have any questions before submitting your application, please contact the relevant NCI program staff listed at the end of this page.

For more complete information, reference the funding opportunity PAR-24-153 (K12 Clinical Trial Optional), and/or contact the program staff.

Applicant Eligibility

PI Criteria

Citizenship	At the time of the award, the PI must be: a citizen of the United States or a non-citizen national or must have been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence (i.e., in possession of a currently valid Alien Registration Receipt Card (1-151 or 1-551), or other legal verification of such status).
Career Stage	Established Investigators (Associate and Full Professors) Expected to have ongoing R01 and/or R01-equivalent cancer- focused grant support (for the K12 Program, R01 and/or R01-equivalent awards are grants or contracts of at least 3 years and $150,000 a year in direct costs, including those supporting clinical trials)

Citizenship

At the time of the award, the PI must be:

a citizen of the United States
or a non-citizen national
or must have been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence (i.e., in possession of a currently valid Alien Registration Receipt Card (1-151 or 1-551), or other legal verification of such status).

Career Stage

Established Investigators (Associate and Full Professors)

Expected to have ongoing R01 and/or R01-equivalent cancer- focused grant support (for the K12 Program, R01 and/or R01-equivalent awards are grants or contracts of at least 3 years and $150,000 a year in direct costs, including those supporting clinical trials)

Mentor Criteria

Career Stage	Researchers from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to participate as mentors. Expected to have independent R01 and/or R01-equivalent cancer-related research support (for the K12 Program, R01 and/or R01-equivalent awards are grants or contracts of at least 3 years and $150,000 a year in direct costs, including those supporting clinical trials)

Career Stage

Researchers from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to participate as mentors.

Expected to have independent R01 and/or R01-equivalent cancer-related research support (for the K12 Program, R01 and/or R01-equivalent awards are grants or contracts of at least 3 years and $150,000 a year in direct costs, including those supporting clinical trials)

Scholar Criteria

Citizenship	At the time of the award, the scholar must be: a citizen of the United States or a noncitizen national or must have been lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence (i.e., in possession of a currently valid Alien Registration Receipt Card (1-151 or 1-551), or other legal verification of such status).
Career Stage	Clinician-scientist Scholars must be: Physicians holding M.D. or D.O. degrees Pharm.D. recipients Nurses with a DNP, Ph.D. or equivalent degree Scholars still in residency training are not eligible.
Commitment	Scholars must commit a minimum of 9 calendar months (75% of full-time professional effort) to research and career development. NCI will allow surgeon-scientists with active surgical duties to request less than 9 person-months (75%) Full-time professional effort under a K12 career development award for the specific purpose of maintaining specialty clinical competency. Scholars may not request less than 6 person-months (50%) full-time professional effort devoted to research and career development activities. Scholars must provide a justification clearly stating the reason(s) for the reduced amount of effort. Scholars who have U.S. Veterans' Administration (VA) appointments may not consider part of the VA effort toward satisfying the "full-time" requirement at the applicant institution.
Duration of Support for each Scholar	2 to 4 years of support

Budget

K12 Program Allowable Costs

Direct Cost Limits	All applications must not exceed $750,000 for direct costs per year. The first year's direct costs budget is capped at $50,000. This first year is for advertising and recruitment of Scholars, Advisory Board(s) recruitment and meeting, program planning and development, and development of individual Scholar's curricula.
Personnel Support	Up to 1.2 person months total effort per annum may be allocated for all PDs/PIs of the K12 program to partially offset their salaries and associated fringe benefit costs, depending on commitment of effort (NOT-OD-24-057: Guidance on Salary Limitation for Grants and Cooperative Agreements FY 2024 ) Salary requests for the Program Faculty/Mentors are not allowed. In years other than year 1 of a new award, if applicable and justified, up to $26,000 per year may be requested to defray the costs of a consultant, Program Administrator, and/or program assistant with responsibilities directly associated with the institutional career development program; salaries must be commensurate with institutional policy for similar positions and specifically identified and justified. Travel for key persons and Advisory Committee members must be justified as specifically required by the proposed program and must not duplicate items generally available for similar programs at the applicant institution. Travel funds at the rate of $1,500 per person will be provided to defray the travel costs to attend a K12 community conference (a regular conference voluntarily organized by an institute(s) with an NCI K12 award for the purpose of gathering K12 Scholars and Mentors for exchange of knowledge, career development and networking).
F&A Costs/Indirect Costs	8%

Direct Cost Limits

All applications must not exceed $750,000 for direct costs per year.

The first year's direct costs budget is capped at $50,000. This first year is for advertising and recruitment of Scholars, Advisory Board(s) recruitment and meeting, program planning and development, and development of individual Scholar's curricula.

Personnel Support

Up to 1.2 person months total effort per annum may be allocated for all PDs/PIs of the K12 program to partially offset their salaries and associated fringe benefit costs, depending on commitment of effort (NOT-OD-24-057: Guidance on Salary Limitation for Grants and Cooperative Agreements FY 2024 )

Salary requests for the Program Faculty/Mentors are not allowed.

In years other than year 1 of a new award, if applicable and justified, up to $26,000 per year may be requested to defray the costs of a consultant, Program Administrator, and/or program assistant with responsibilities directly associated with the institutional career development program; salaries must be commensurate with institutional policy for similar positions and specifically identified and justified.

Travel for key persons and Advisory Committee members must be justified as specifically required by the proposed program and must not duplicate items generally available for similar programs at the applicant institution.

Travel funds at the rate of $1,500 per person will be provided to defray the travel costs to attend a K12 community conference (a regular conference voluntarily organized by an institute(s) with an NCI K12 award for the purpose of gathering K12 Scholars and Mentors for exchange of knowledge, career development and networking).

F&A Costs/Indirect Costs

Financial Support for Each K12 Fellow

Salary	Up to $110K/year + fringe benefits
Research Development Support	Up to $30K/year

How to Apply

Applications must be submitted electronically.
Applicants must follow the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, as well as any program-specific instructions noted in Section IV. of the funding opportunity.
When the program-specific instructions deviate from those in the Application Guide, follow the program-specific instructions in the funding opportunity.
Applications that do not comply with these instructions may be delayed or not be accepted for review.

For assistance with application submission, please see the Frequently Asked Questions and/or contact eRA Commons Help Desk/Grant.gov contact Center.

Application Receipt Dates and Review Schedule

Please refer to the funding opportunity for application due dates. Applications are due by 5 pm local time.

When a standard submission date falls on a weekend or Federal holiday, the application deadline is automatically extended to the next business day.

Note: Start dates are determined by the availability of NCI funds and may not occur until well after the earliest possible start date.

Review and Selection Process

Subcommittee F convened by the Division of Extramural Activities of the NCI will determine if meets the broad needs of the program and priorities of NCI and the National Cancer Program.

For review criteria for the K12 grant mechanism, see the Section V. Application Review Criteria section of the funding opportunity.

K12 Special Notes

This is an NCI-specific funding opportunity. For all policies governing this award mechanism, refer to the funding opportunity.

Recommended Tables

For required Tables for New and Competing Renewal applications, please see Data tables for use with Institutional Research Training grant applications using the SF424 (R&R).

Special Institutional Statement Regarding Human Subjects Research Under K12 Support

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Worta McCaskill-Stevens Career Development Award for Community Oncology and Prevention Research (K12) must be in compliance with all NIH/NCI policies pertaining to the use of human subjects. These policies apply to all research involving human subjects, not just clinical trials.

The K12 is a training and career development grant in which candidate positions are filled at the discretion of the institution, and assignment of candidate positions is generally not known at the time of application or at the time of an award. Due to this uncertainty, the word "Indefinite" should be placed in the box for IRB review date on the face page of the application, and the applicant institution must provide in the submitted grant application a Special Statement on Human Subjects Research.

Resources

NCI Staff Contacts

Dr. Yansong Bian
Program Director
Email: yansong.bian@nih.gov
Branch Phone: 240-276-5630

For assistance with xTrain, contact:

Teresa Quinones-Saadipour
Program Specialist
Email: Teresa.Quinones-Saadipour@nih.gov
Phone: 240-276-5644

For technical issues with xTrain, contact the eRA Service Desk

For information regarding fiscal and/or budget issues, contact:

Grant Management Contact
Amy Bartosch
Email: Amy.Bartosch@nih.gov

For information regarding review issues, contact:

Referral Officer
Division of Extramural Activities
Phone: 240-276-6390
Fax: 240-276-7682