 We're really glad you can join us for this webinar to review key features of our recently renewed LC funding opportunities. We'll be posting these slides, links to the resources, and the video of the webinar on the webinar web page. My colleague Nicole will also be putting links that we mentioned into the chat. We've left some time at the end to try and answer your questions. So as attendees, you can put comments and questions in the Q&A. However, we are using the chat for one-way communication to you. So please feel free to use that Q&A button to put any questions you've got in, and you can also upvote other folks' questions that you'd like to see answered. If we don't get to your questions or another one, excuse me, pops up later, please just reach out to us. Before we start, I just wanted to give you a quick glance at the NHGRI staff that are listed on the program announcements. Nicole Lockhart, Renee Sterling, and I are the program officers that you can reach out to as you plan your applications, and Deanna Ingersoll is our Chief of Grants Management. She makes sure the grants and awards follow NIH and government policy. I also wanted to quickly introduce our research program. The ethical, legal, and social implications research program is centered at the National Human Genome Research Institute. It was created in 1990 as an early part of the human genome project. Since then, the program has continuously supported research into the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomics, trying to anticipate and mitigate harms and maximize the equitable benefits of human genetics. Three key features of LC research that I wanted to mention are its anticipatory nature. We are always looking for researchers who are trying to identify and address issues as they emerge on the horizon before they come a problem, and the use of multidisciplinary approaches in these grants. The research is often carried out by scholars across a wide range of academic and health disciplines. Just a few of the disciplines our LC scholars represent are listed here. The corollary to that multidisciplinary approach is that researchers use various methods and study designs to help cover all the angles that social, ethical, and legal issues pose. The majority of the LC grants that we fund are submitted through the three notices of funding opportunity or no flows that we're discussing today. These renewed program announcements were issued in October 2023. Those light blue par numbers that you see are just what we use to refer to each of the three funding announcements. The labels R01, R21, and R03 refer to the three types of research grants that we support. I'll say more about what those mean shortly. Each notice of funding opportunity or NOFO has three receipt dates per year for the next three years, so nine total for each of them in February, June, and October. The first receipt dates coming up in mid-February next year. This presentation doesn't include everything that you're going to need to know to apply for one of these grants. We want to highlight key features and significant changes that we've made. Going to each of the program announcements webpages will bring you all the details. From there, you can always reach out to us with questions. The shared purpose of these funding opportunities has not changed a great deal. We still invite research applications to study the LC of human genetics and genomics. We continue to be interested in proposals that identify, examine, and address LC issues. Projects can focus at many levels from individuals through to society as a whole, and we expect researchers to identify a wide range of relevant, timely topics. We're really, really excited to be able to tell you that 15 other NIH institutes and offices share those goals and signed on to at least one of the LC program announcements. Seven little red asterisks in the table denote institutes and centers that are new in these renewals. Please note that not every institute participates in every funding opportunity. You don't, however, need to memorize that table. This is a screenshot from the R01 webpage showing that at the very top of the announcement, you'll find a list of participating NIH institutes and offices. Similarly, at the end of each announcement, in section seven, we list the names, email addresses, and phone numbers for scientific context at all of the different institutes, as well as grants management contacts from each participating institute or center. Regardless of the nature of your questions, when you first reach out, we really recommend starting the scientific contact, which is just another term for program officers like me, Nicole, Renee, and our program officer colleagues at the other institutes. It's just a good place to start, and if we need to reach out to grants management, we will. So what research topics is NHGRI interested in? At NHGRI, we've sorted a partial list of topics into four main areas. The first area, genomics and sociocultural structures and values explores personal, social, and cultural factors that shape the use of genomic information and technology. I want to call special attention to the second area, genomics at the institutional and systems level. Although we previously indicated our interest in research that looks at the interplay between genomics, institutions, and systems, this is the first set of program announcements to list this as an area of research interest. Topics in the genomic research design area examine ethical, legal, social, and policy issues in the design and conduct of genetic and genomic research. And the genomic healthcare area examines implications of the integration of genomics into a variety of healthcare settings. We provide more details and many, many examples on a separate webpage that's online. The link to that webpage is included in each of the program announcements, and is also being posted in the chat. Applicants should also be aware that each participating institute, center, or office has also provided their own research interests in the program announcements. These are especially important to read if you want to focus on a specific disease area. So please be sure to read through these research interests. You may identify more than one funder who's interested in your ideas, and that it can only be a good thing. We're interested in applications from investigators representing a wide range of lived experiences and perspectives. As I've stated already, we also welcome applications from a wide array of disciplines using all sorts of approaches, excuse me. A given application can use a single method or more than one. While the LC NOFOS are not specifically directed at community-involved research, we want to emphasize that there's ample room for such work here. We know community perspectives can inform genomics, and we support the involvement of communities in any or all phases of a study where it's appropriate for your goals. Community work can include include a range of methods. We're not specifying any given approach, but community-involved work is highly encouraged but not required in applications to the LC NOFOS. Section three of each funding opportunity details who is eligible to apply. There are very few restrictions on the types of individuals who can submit a grant. For example, a PhD or MD is not required in order to serve as a principal investigator. We also allow for a broad range of organizations to submit applications. Remember, it's technically the organization and not the researcher who actually submits the application. Foreign organizations are welcome to submit applications themselves or be included as collaborators. In the registrations that you filled out, we received several questions from registrants about the participation of foreign institutions, and so we want to provide a little more detail here. NIH defines a foreign organization as one that's located in a country other than the United States and its territories that's subject to the laws of that country. Again, foreign organizations can be applicants or partners, and there's no requirement to work with any other specific countries. You use the same application forms and instructions as domestic applicants. There are some additional steps you need to make sure your institution is registered with NIH for the submission of grants. So if you aren't sure whether your institution is registered with NIH, look into that early on because that process can take at least six weeks to complete. There are many, many resources available to foreign applicants as well. We're putting some links into the chat. Applications from foreign institutions are reviewed and scored alongside domestic applications, and the reviews are based on the same criteria. For foreign applications, the NIH also considers the relevance to the mission of the institute that you're seeking funding from. It considers whether the proposal offers a research opportunity that's not readily available in the United States. It looks at the potential of the project to advance health science in the United States, and we look for compliance with human subjects, animal welfare, and inclusion requirements. If you're from a foreign institution and thinking about your first NIH grant application or your first LC application, excuse me, please reach out to us. We are happy to talk with you. We also received several questions from registrants about the differences between the RO1, the R21, and the RO3. When you reach the point where you've got a research idea but you're not sure what type of application is best, that's a perfect time to reach out to the program officers. With that said, we wanted to explain a few of the major differences between the three grant types. Excuse me, the RO1 funds larger studies that often build on preliminary data. While preliminary data isn't required for an RO1, it is highly recommended. It is something that reviewers will look for and comment on if it's absent. RO1s have an annual budget limit of $500,000 per year in direct costs, and most of the institutes and centers that signed on to the NOFOs allow a five-year project duration. NHGRI is a little different. We typically fund four-year RO1s. However, an RO1 applicant who feels they will need a fifth year, for example, to conduct community-involved research, which often requires extra time, they can request a five-year project from NHGRI before submitting their application, so that's something you want to reach out to us before you submit. RO1s are smaller grants. They tend to be exploratory projects designed to generate pilot data for a larger study. RO1 budgets are limited to $275,000 in total direct costs over the lifetime of the grant. Traditionally, RO1s are two years long, but this NOFO allows for three-year grants. However, the budget cap remains the same, $275,000 total direct costs across either two or three years. Finally, the RO3 is a small grant. These tend to be single investigator projects, for example, conceptual analyses or secondary data analysis. The budget limit is $50,000 in direct costs per year for two years maximum. Now that I've laid out some of the basics of the RO1, R21, and RO3, I want to give you an update on new things that we are asking for in these grants, in applications to the NOFOs. The first is the data management and sharing plan. NIH policy now expects researchers to maximize their sharing of scientific data, including those collected in ELSI grants. So it is required that you submit a data management and sharing plan or DMSP with the RO1, the R21, and the RO3. Applications collecting data require a DMSP plan, essentially detailing what you'll share and how you'll do it. Applicants should include a DMSP if you're collecting any data that you don't plan to share, as you'll need to justify those decisions. Why are you not sharing this data? Moreover, if you're not collecting any data, you should still attach a DMSP that confirms there will be no data to share. Applications without a data sharing plan will be incomplete and may be withdrawn. The plan itself is a two-page attachment. There are several resources available explaining what goes into the plan and how to write one. These include an ELSI webpage with a copy of the webinar that we held last summer specifically for ELSI grantees. There's also a sample ELSI plan online along with samples for many other types of grants, and Nicole is posting those links. Second, there's another new requirement that applies only to RO1 applications. Excuse me. The NIH recognizes the diverse teams working together and capitalizing on innovative ideas and distinct perspectives outperform homogenous teams. RO1 applications must include a plan for enhancing diverse perspectives or a PEDP. This plan is a summary of the strategies that will be used to advance the scientific and technical merit of the proposed project by increasing the diversity of perspectives brought to the grant. Diverse perspectives may come from the people who do the research, the places where it's done, as well as the people who participate in the research as part of the study population. The PEDP is submitted as a one-page other attachment to be included in the RO1 grant applications. The PEDP should provide an integrated view of the ways that enhancing diverse perspectives is supported and will improve the science in the application. It should align where possible with descriptions in the research strategy part of the grant, and the PEDP can speak to enhancing the science in many ways via any of the review criteria. The PEDP will vary depending on study specifics, and it will be considered in scientific peer review, so your grant will be scored based on the PEDP impart. RO1s without the PEDP will be considered incomplete and will be withdrawn. Several examples of the types of things that a grant might do to enhance diverse perspectives are available on the website that Nicole is posting now. Oops, sorry about that. Applications that propose using variables in their analysis that measure race, ethnicity, genealogical ancestry, genetic ancestry, sex, gender, or sexual orientation are expected to name and define the variables that you're going to use and provide rationale for their use in the analysis of the grant. The rationale should be supported by established theory frameworks for scientific evidence. You need to describe how the planned use of the selective variables relates to the proposed research questions and describe any assumptions or limitations. You also need to consider variables that are provided, you don't need to, but you can consider variables that are provided in the FNX toolkit, which is an NIH resource online that houses recommended standard measures for use in biomedical research. I neglected to say at the top of the slide that this applies to the R01 and the R21, but not the R03, my apologies. This is a reviewable criterion in both the R01 and R21 that appears in section five of the notices of funding opportunity under the section called approach. So I just wanted to summarize those key differences between the three mechanisms. You see here for all three NOFOs, the R01, the R21, and the R03, you must submit a data management and sharing plan per NIH policy. All applications must have a data management and sharing plan regardless of your approach. In addition, all three NOFOs encourage community involvement where it's appropriate. Community involvement is not required, but it is encouraged. For the R01 and the R21, if you propose a project that will use population descriptors, then in the analysis, then it's requested that you provide a description of the variables you're using and a rationale for their use. Finally, for the R01, you must submit a plan for enhancing diverse perspectives. Your application will be withdrawn if it does not include a PEDP. Moreover, the R01 applications that are submitted to NHRI require prior approval from a program officer at NHRI in order to apply for a five-year grant. That concludes my slides. I just wanted to say that we really, really encourage you, as you're thinking about applying, to reach out to program officers early and often. If you reach out to us a week or two before your grant is due, we'll be much more limited in the help that we can offer. Reaching out a couple months beforehand, we can really give you as much expertise as we can offer. Contact us as often as you need to. That's our job, and it is literally the best part of it, so we look forward to hearing from you. With that, I just wanted to acknowledge my amazing colleagues at NHGRI and all of our colleagues at the 15 offices and institutes that joined the RFA. I'm going to turn it over to Renee, who's going to ferry us through questions and answers. Thank you so much. Thanks, Dave, and good afternoon, everyone. I noticed that there are some questions coming into the Q&A. We thought we would start the session by addressing some of the questions that we received through the registration form. Dave answered several of them throughout his presentation, but there are a few that remain regarding NHGRI priorities, choosing funding opportunities, community involvement, and budget. I'll go through those, and then we'll shift over to the Q&A. Next slide. Let's start with NHGRI priorities. In this regard, Dave mentioned the NOFA identifies four broad areas of LC research for NHGRI. Applicants can look at LC issues associated with any of NHGRI's scientific areas, and Nicole put links to both of those in the chat. Please keep in mind that applications that come to NHGRI that focus on a specific disease or disorder will need to show how the work is broadly generalizable or transferable across other conditions. If you have disease-specific research interests, you may find them reflected in the research interests of one of the other participating institutes or centers listed in the NOFA. So be sure to read the full array of research interests across those who are signed on and reach out to the corresponding scientific contacts. Also, it can be helpful to get feedback from more than one project officer on your work, so if your work might relate to the mission or interest of two or more institutes, feel free to reach out to multiple project officers. Next slide. A few questions about how to select the right funding opportunity. So there are a variety of factors that can impact which funding opportunity you apply for, and we encourage applicants to reach out to us early in your thought process if you're trying to make a choice or figure out what the best route is. Some of the things that are important to consider are listed here. Your career stage, research interests, prior work you've done, other funding opportunities that are available at the time that you're considering submitting. All of these factors could impact which funding opportunity is best. So because one answer won't fit all, we really encourage you to talk with a program officer directly about your interests and goals and we can help you think through the pros and cons of different opportunities you might be eligible for. Next slide. All right, so some of you may be in a situation where you recently applied to an LC notebook and it didn't score well, your application didn't score well enough to be funded, and per NIH policy you have 37 months to revise an application and resubmit. If your original application was submitted to the previous LC notice that is now expired, you can resubmit your revised application to the new notebook. You also could submit your project as a new application if you feel like your application is different from the original one or you just like to separate it from the prior review. So you have that option available to you and there's a link in the chat to our grant resubmissions page for more information on resubmissions. There was a question about special issues pertaining to tribal communities and I'll start by pointing out that federally recognized tribes in the U.S. are sovereign nations with their own governments and laws and NIH is committed to upholding tribal sovereignty. So as a researcher, you can respect tribal sovereignty through meaningful collaboration with tribal leaders about your research project and the types of research questions you're interested in, the types of questions they may be interested in. For projects involving American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other indigenous groups, we encourage you to engage with tribal leaders and other community members about your work. This engagement could include discussion of research questions, protocols, approaches to data sharing or other key issues associated with the design and implementation of your project and the dissemination of its findings. Any NIH pull together resource with additional considerations for researchers working with tribal communities that includes best practices around management and sharing of data. In particular, we encourage you to take a look at those and you'll find the link in the chat. Next slide. All right. In terms of a budget question that we received, community involvement can take many forms and there were questions about how you can budget for involvement of community or other interest groups, whether they be an advisory board member, a member of your research team or you're doing a community-based participatory research project, you should be clear in your application what roles community members are playing and how they will serve the project. If you propose community or interest group involvement, you should include in your budget the funds you need to provide compensation and support their successful involvement. The budget justification should be sure to describe the roles and the support needs of the community members in the project. And since we're fortunate to have our Chief Grants Management Officer, Deanna, here with us, I want to turn it over to her to point out some other special considerations you'd want to keep in mind. Deanna? Hi. Thank you. I did want to just say that as far as compensation goes, if you're proposing salaries for people, those people have to actually be employees or have an employment relationship with the sub-recipients, so make sure that you're appropriately listing them in your budget by what they are. If they're a salaried employee, they need to go in the personnel section. If they're a consultant, they need to be a consultant, et cetera. There are also other costs that may be requested, especially when we're talking in regards to U.S. tribal governments, but we do have to remember that we still have the laws of the federal government to follow, and some of those costs may not be allowed. So those are things that we will look at, but I mean, certainly should request what you need, and then we look at it from there. Thanks, Deanna. And I think if people have questions about this area, when you contact a program officer to talk about your specific aims or your research interests, you can be sure to bring this up and we can help find answers out for you that might be related to your specific situation. All right, one more, and then we're going to go to the Q&A. Are there any special requirements for low- to middle-income countries? I'll say there are no specific requirements related to the concept of research in low- to middle-income countries or the submission of applications from these countries. So you should follow requirements for foreign and international organizations as appear in grants policy. Also, please be sure to review NIH's Tips for International Applicants, which provide helpful information regarding registration with Grants.gov and NIH's ERA Common System. And those links are also in the chat. So with that, I think we are ready to shift to the Q&A. All right. So we have a comment in the Q&A. Glad to hear your requesting SOGI data. Wonderful. Thank you for that. And then another question here on population descriptors. Does this mean we don't necessarily need to complete a planned enrollment table if we don't plan to analyze gender or ethnicity? No, you do need to complete the planned enrollment table. Dave, did you want to elaborate on that? Yes. This requirement doesn't supplant the requirement to fill out that proposed recruitment table. You can, excuse me, you can collect information on other variables that are not used in the OMB planned recruitment table. So you may want to analyze your data by other variables, variables other than the ones that that we require you to collect. But you still need to collect the information needed to fill out those tables as well. Is that useful? Okay, I see a thumbs up on there. So yes, I think so, Dave. Basically the inclusion table is an NIH level policy. So you've got to do that. The information about population descriptors is specific to these parts. So that's something additional that we're asking for to try and get more information about how researchers plan to use those variables. But the inclusion tables is an absolute NIH requirement. So you still have to do those tables. All right. Thanks, Nicole. So the next question, can you request the fifth year from NHGRI if needed during the grant? So as Dave mentioned, on the R01, you can request up to five years from NHGRI and you would need justification for that. Did you want to elaborate, Dave? Well, there is also the option if you've got a four-year grant, but you know you're going to need more time. Diana, tell me if I misspeak here. As that fourth year comes to a close and you know you're going to need more time but not more money, you've got enough money to keep doing the work. You can apply for an extension of your grant and keep going for that fourth year. You may want to be able to plan ahead. And so if you think you're going to need a fifth year at the time you apply, it might be helpful to talk that over with us. Anything to add, Nicole? No. I mean, I would just say since this question is focused on during the grant, when you put in your initial application, make sure you're talking to us about appropriate award length and trying your best to come up with what will work. And then if your award is funded, just throughout the course of your grant, stay in the loop with your program officer. If you anticipate needing extra time, some of that requires prior approval. It requires some work on our end and requires justification. So make sure you're staying in touch with whoever your program officer is. And that's always listed on your notice of award so that we know if there's any additional considerations that need to be taken into account. That's kind of a case by case basis. So we can't give a hard and fast rule about a work in every situation. Thanks, Nicole. All right. Next we have a FYI from ORWH. This is the Office of Research on Women's Health. Am I correct? Yes. Okay. And they're pointing out that they do not fund grants directly. Instead, they are engaged in co-funding with other ICs. So in order for your application to be considered by Women's Health, it must be responsive to the priorities of one of the participating ICs and the Office of Women's Health. So thank you, Reggie, for that clarification. Next. Before the grant review, how can we ensure that the data management and sharing plan we drafted is accurate and acceptable that appears that this is crucial to prevent any issues during grant review and the acceptance process? Yes. So of note, your data management and sharing plan must be submitted with your application. It is not reviewed as part of the peer review process. Program staff will review your plan and prior to award, if there are any concerns about the plan, you will have an opportunity in collaboration with the program officer to discuss and make changes as needed to meet the requirements and expectations of the policy. So there will be a chance to revise it and that can occur after application submission. And the plans are not reviewed by study sections. I think I saw a thumbs up on there. And Dave, you want to add? Just to add that not only are they not reviewed, the reviewers can't even see the data management and sharing plan. So it really is something between you and us that we negotiate before awarding the grant. Thanks, Dave. All right. Is there a link to info on the new population description? I believe that means population descriptors. This is very highly politicized and sometimes reviewers and participant populations differ in their preferred language guidance would be welcome. Nicole, if you can, we do, NHGRI did release an explainer on population descriptors that we're happy to share. We realized that there are differences in language and definitions. And that based on the type of research you're doing, there may be different population descriptors that are more or less relevant. Our goal with this funding opportunity is to really encourage researchers to think through the choices that they are making and be transparent about those choices. So we are not offering particular language or definitions or terms. The explainer does sort of focus on race, ethnicity, and ancestry and offers perspectives on those. So we really encourage you to be clear and have rationale for the populations descriptors that you use if you're using them, why you're using them, how you're defining them. And I think this is also a great place for community engagement. The attendee is noting that participant populations differ in their language. So including in your rationale, discussions that you might have had with the communities of interest to your project about the terms they use, what they mean, why they're significant in the context of your question is something that would be useful to elaborate in your application. Anything to add there, Dave and Nicole? Okay, great. Generally speaking, what percentage of projects are funded for the R01, R21, R01, respectively? The majority are R01s, but we do have at least an NHGRI, a good number of R21s and R03s. Nicole, you want to add on that? Yeah, I would just say that since we're a small program, it does vary year to year because a small uptick in R21s can change that proportion. And rather than trying to think about which mechanisms are most frequently funded, I would urge applicants to think about which mechanisms are most appropriate for their project. If that's something you need help thinking through, that's a conversation we have all the time. So really feel free to reach out to either us or our IC colleagues to talk through is an R01 or an R21 or an R03 going to be the best fit for me. If you just go based on what's most likely to be funded and submit something that's not a good fit, that's not really going to serve you well. So just really keep in mind that mechanism fit and there can be some nuances there. So it's something we're happy to help applicants think through prior to submission. Thank you, Nicole. All right, the next one here. If an R01 proposal is primarily going to consist of secondary data analyses, what sort of preliminary data are expected? This is a good question. Nicole or Dave, I'm thinking through what might be a good way to answer this. So I think I would ask this applicant to talk to us prior to submission. And again, you've heard us say this 15 times. We really, really want you to talk to us because we hope it's helpful. And it's hard to come up with a general answer to this kind of question. I think you should kind of think basically your preliminary data is demonstrating that you can do these analyses. So it could be one that you have access to the data you proposed to analyze. Maybe you're providing a letter of support, for example. Maybe you're showing that you've done these analyses before. So you're saying we've done similar work in this disease area. We've done similar work over here. You're kind of showing your ability to conduct a study and to access the data you say you want to access. I think those are in general probably kind of the key points. But it might depend a little bit on your study design. And so we can always provide more specific guidance once we have a specific same page or something else to work off of. Yes. Thank you, Nicole. Can an individual apply for two different funding opportunities within the same funding hall? If the projects are substantively different, I believe you can. Do either of you know otherwise? That's what I would say. Yeah. I think the answer is yes. But you want to make sure it's not the same grant written two different ways or the same project written two different ways in the different mechanisms. They should be distinct projects. Is there more general more guidance on inclusion criteria? Perhaps the attendee could elaborate a bit more. Are you speaking about inclusion criteria in terms of human subjects or eligibility? Not quite sure how to answer that one. Oh. Can you please discuss how revised review criteria will affect scores from AO to A1 applications? So when you resubmit your grant, if you are submitting it as a resubmission and you've made revisions, you have an opportunity to state how you've addressed the concerns of the previous panel that reviewed your application. When you resubmit, it will go to a panel which may or may not include the same reviewers in that study section, and they will use the criteria in the current NOFO to evaluate the application. So that is a good point. If you submitted your application under the previous par where something like population descriptors was not expected to be elaborated on, there is a review criteria related to population descriptors. You would want to speak to that in your application. And then also, if you're doing, and if this is an RO1, you'll have the expectation of a PDP that Dave mentioned, so that would have to be integrated. And Deanna, maybe you wanted to elaborate here? I'm not sure if there are other points to be made, but we plan to release a list of Q&As after the webinar along with this recording and the links that we've provided. They'll be on the same web page that you registered for the webinar. And so we'll make sure we have a complete response to this important point listed there. I don't think we have much more to add on that question at this time. But please do contact us if you have questions about a resubmission in particular. I am not seeing any other questions. Wait a minute. Oh, here we go. Can STEM education components be incorporated in the RO1 or R21 applications over this fall under a different area? STEM education. These are research grants. If you were doing some sort of applied research study that involved education and it was genomics related and it was a research project, perhaps. So that would be something where it would be useful to hear more about your specific aims in that regard. All right. Well, Dave, do you want to close this out or? There's one more, Renee, but just another one. Oh, sorry. Any advice for folks who have not received funding as PIs from NIH before? Yes. Contact us early. Talk with a program officer about your interests. NHGRI also provides funding for a great resource called LC Hub. And LC Hub has conducted a series of trainings, and Nicole, maybe you can put the chat, a series of trainings about applying for LC research grants. They talk about the grant application process in general. It's focused on NIH funding opportunities. They talk, there's a session on specific aims and their importance and how they're used. And some other topics. And Nicole, okay, great. Nicole has put into the chat a link to Trainee Hub, which is a section of LC Hub that's designed for trainees and early career scholars. And you'll see as you scroll down that page, the section, finding and making sense of NIH funding opportunities, publishing and LC journals, writing of specific aims. And so we think that those webinars would be a great place to start after giving us a call, or both at the same time. Okay, we have another question here. Are international applicants eligible for new investigator and early stage investigator status? That is a great question. I'm not sure I know the answer. I want to know the answer. My gut is that the answer is no, but we can find it out. Let's commit to putting a firm answer on that in our posted FAQs that will go on the website from this webinar. That's an important enough distinction. We want to make sure we don't get that wrong since we're answering questions live. We don't want to leave someone incorrectly. Oh, Deanna has her hand up. Maybe she knows. Hi. Sorry, excuse me. So NIH doesn't necessarily say that you cannot be considered an NIH or an ESI if you're an international applicant. The bigger issue is if an international applicant is eligible to apply to the announcement. The NIH, the new investigator and early stage investigator roles are based on funding received, how far out from the terminal degree date, things like that. I think the bigger question is can an international applicant apply to the notice? And if they can, then I believe the NIH and ESI would still apply based on the date of terminal degree. Thank you, Deanna. And I'll just put in the chat for those who may be familiar with ESI and NIH policies, a page where you can find information about both of those. And just to reiterate from Dave's earlier presentation, foreign applications are allowable under these LC parts. We are accepting foreign applications. But as Deanna kind of hinted at, there are some other notices of funding opportunity which are restricted to or encourage in particular ESI and so early stage investigator or new investigator applications. And those can sometimes be really great and supportive of individuals at those career stages. They may or may not allow foreign applications. So if you are at a foreign institution, you always want to check under those eligibility criteria before you get too far down the road to see if this is going to be a good fit for you. All right. And we have a follow on question here about whether you have a terminal master's degree in your field, whether you are eligible for ESI as well. Also a good question. And I was just looking at the page, the link that I put into the chat regarding the policy will be sure to include a definitive answer on that unless someone knows right now. I'm nearly positive that you are because it's your terminal degree. I mean, I'm trying to say someone with a terminal master's degree in their field would still be eligible for ESI. We will put an answer to that as well in our FAQ. And just to reiterate, NHGRI does fund PIs with terminal master's degrees under the LC program. We have funded them in the past and we focus, we try to focus more on does the person have the correct expertise? Do they have the research experience? And if that's something you have concerns or questions about, we're happy to talk to you about, you know, what's kind of a good fit for you. Yeah, I did put into the chat the language on the policy page, which does not make sense, which does not make explicit mention of doctorate degrees, but rather mentions a terminal research degree. So we'll again look into that and make sure we have a confirmed answer in the list of FAQs. All right. Thank you all so much for tending, for asking questions. And as I said at the outset, we've repeated several times as you get going on this and new questions come up, just reach out to us. We are happy to help. And that's what we will do. Thanks again. We are looking forward to your applications. But reach out to us beforehand as you need. Thanks, everyone.