The purpose of this funding opportunity is to continue the High-End Instrumentation (HEI) grant Program administered by ORIP. The objective of the Program is to make available to institutions expensive research instruments that can only be justified on a shared-use basis and that are needed for NIH-supported projects in basic, translational or clinical areas of biomedical/behavioral research. The HEI Program provides funds to purchase or upgrade a single item of expensive, specialized, commercially available instrument or an integrated instrumentation system. An integrated instrumentation system is one in which the components, when used in conjunction with one another, perform a function that no single component could provide. The components must be dedicated to the system and not used independently.
Types of supported instruments include, but are not limited to: X-ray diffractometers, electron and light microscopes, mass and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, protein and DNA sequencers, biosensors, cell sorters, and biomedical imagers. Applications for "stand alone" computer systems (supercomputers, computer clusters and storage systems) will only be considered if the instrument is solely dedicated to the research needs of a broad community of NIH-supported investigators.
All instruments, integrated systems, and computer systems must be dedicated to research only.
To promote cost effectiveness, to encourage optimal sharing among individual investigators, research groups and departments, and to foster a collaborative multidisciplinary environment, the instrument should be integrated in a core facility, whenever possible.
Each applicant institution must propose a Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) who can assume administrative/scientific oversight responsibility for the requested instrumentation. The PD/PI will be responsible for:
- Requesting no-cost extensions of the project period, if needed.
- Preparing (and working with the Institution to submit) a Final Progress Report at the end of the project period that describes the purchased instrument, lists all users and publications resulting from use of the instrument, and outlines the value of the instrument to the investigators and to the institution as a whole.
- Preparing and submitting Annual Usage Reports (AURs) of the instrument to the NIH for a period of four years after the project end date.
The PD/PI and the Advisory Committee are responsible for the development of guidelines for:
- Maximum utilization of the instrument, including time allocation.
- A detailed plan for the day-to-day management and safe operation of the instrument.
- A plan to ensure that access to the instrument is limited to users whose projects have
- received approval from institutional human subjects, animal welfare, and biosafety committees, as applicable.
- A financial plan for the long-term operation and maintenance of the instrument during the post-award period.
- Relocation of the instrument within or outside the institution or change of ownership, if such change is necessary.
- Recommending a new PD/PI, if such a need arises.
Projects funded under this program can be found at https://reporter.nih.gov/search/AsoG6ZiKt0CghL2usdV-Vg/projects