Amendment 1_Q A.pdf

“Expanding Diversity in Engineering and the Physical Sciences”

AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION NO: NHLBI-CSB-EB-2012-3-RNP

AMENDMENT NO.: 01

EFFECTIVE DATE: August 10, 2011

DUE DATE: August 29, 2011 4:00 Eastern

ISSUED BY:

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH

Office of Acquisitions

6701 Rockledge Drive, Suite 6121

Bethesda, Maryland 20892-7902

Point of Contact: Rieka Plugge

E-Mail: rieka.plugge@nih.gov

Phone: 301-496-6092

Fax: 301-480-0430

The above numbered solicitation is amended as set forth below. All other terms and conditions of the solicitation remain unchanged.

DESCRIPTION OF AMENDMENT

PURPOSE: The following questions and answers are provided for information purposes:

1. Question: All STEM vs. biomedical focus: The SOW in Part I, Introduction, Part B and Part I, Specific Rqts, refers to increasing underrepresented students’ retention and graduation in all STEM disciplines; other sections of the SOW (Part II, Gen Rqts, Part B, state that the program will expose the trainees to “biomedical” research. Can you clarify that the SSU proposal will be most competitive if it includes in its participating STEM student majors and STEM faculty those departments that most strongly prepare our students for biomedical careers (biology, chemistry, math, and behavior analysis).

Answer: The goal of the anticipated contract award is to broadly increase the participation of underrepresented students in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields and to prepare these students for academic or industrial mailto:rieka.plugge@nih.gov� research-related careers. Given NIH’s mission and research focus, this program is interested in preparing these students, whether they have backgrounds in the biological, computational, or physical sciences, for biomedical or biomedical-related research. It is also recognized that many undergraduate students may not yet be aware or may not yet have decided to pursue career options in the STEM fields. This acquisition is also open to exposing students to both biomedical and non-biomedical research experiences.

2. Question: Number of cohorts: Part II.B. states that the awardee will recruit and support a small (12 or more) group of underrepresented UG in 1 or more STEM fields. Part II.C., Study Phases, gives the illustrative example of 2 recruitments: incoming freshmen who enter the summer before matriculation (boot camp), and a 2nd recruitment in the 2nd summer. Is this second recruitment also new incoming freshman? Can we have, for example, 12 incoming freshmen in year 1, and also recruit 12 new freshmen in year 2 to compose 2 cohorts?

Answer: The solicitation anticipates responses from either 2-year or 4-year institutions.

In either case, an institution may choose to recruit all the participants in the freshman year or to recruit them in two phases. Ideally, a program would recruit all program participants at the same time to avoid complicating program management and evaluation. However, a program might choose to use multiple recruitments to test the effectiveness of a specific program activity or should they see a number of participants terminate before completing the proposed program activities.

3. Question: Term of Award: We understand that the contracts will be awarded ~

December 1, and the term will be 3-4 years. Please confirm, if you can, this date and term. If so, this would mean that we could not test the full effectiveness of the program since the 1st cohort of students would not yet have graduated. (If we start December 1, and recruit students as incoming freshmen for Summer 2012, then these students will be midway through their senior year when the programs end after 4 years.) Can we propose a longer term than 4 years?

Answer: As stated in the SOW, NIBIB will fund an initial base 1-year period and, assuming satisfactory performance, an additional three option years. This 4-year support period should allow the respondent institution to identify a group of program students in their freshman year and to follow them through their senior year.

4. Question: Faculty Compensation: Part II.C.. refers to trainees conducting academic year research at SSU starting in sophomore year. Our faculty have 100% teaching loads in the academic year, except where they are released to do research. Can the NIBIB contract award be used to release the faculty mentors from teaching 1 course/semester in order to mentor the trainees in research? Also, can contract funds be used to pay the faculty for mentoring and supervising those trainees who are conducting summer research at

SSU (we understand trainees will also be conducting research off-site at NIH and industry sites.)

Answer: NIBIB expects the respondent institution to prepare participants for academic and industrial research experiences outside their home institution. NIBIB is open to supporting additional research experiences at the home institution during the summer or outside the academic year, including some release time for mentoring faculty, but it is expected that the program will be focused primarily on student rather than faculty support.

5. Question: Please confirm that the costs for the trainees’ off-site NIH research and industry research will be borne by NIH and industry, i.e., we don’t have to include these costs in our SSU proposed budget. Will the industries and NIH pay outright for the students’ time during the off-site summers?

Answer: Yes, NIBIB is assuming that the NIH Intramural program and the companies will provide student stipends for the summer off-site research experiences.

6. Question: Do we need to include letters of support from other institutions that might be interested in taking our students for off-site summer research (such as Vanderbilt, Howard, etc.)

Answer: Letters of support would only be required if the respondent has an existing or planned arrangement with the other educational institution(s).