Maintaining your ESI status...

With one R01 application waiting for additional experiments before resubmission and one R01 submitted, I received the dreaded email from the NIH saying that my ESI (early stage investigator) status had ended. I was sad and wondered what would happen to my lab that the extra bump in percentile for funding is gone. Since I have never had an R01 the New Investigator status still holds, but it's institute dependent and not as codified as the ESI.

The fact that ESI status depends on the date your PhD was conferred is a real issue as people stay longer and longer in their postdoc position. All candidates we interviewed in our latest faculty search had started their postdocs 2007-2009, so their ESI bump could end as early as next year. I was talking to a friend about this and actually found out that things are not as black and white. With some planning you can maintain your ESI past the dreaded deadline.

It turns out your application is listed as ESI as long as you SUBMIT before the ESI ends, so, phew, my currently submitted R01 will be regarded as ESI-eligible. Not only...

For individuals who are still New Investigators at the time of resubmission of the A1 application, there is a 13 month period during which the New Investigator can submit the A1 resubmission application to retain ESI status. 

This means that you have 1 year to resubmit your application and will still maintain ESI status. So, my first R01 application will still be considered ESI if resubmitted in July 2016 AND my second R01 application will remain ESI until March 2017...a full year after my ESI status ended.  Of course the ESI advantage will disappear if R01 #1 is funded, but it's nice to know that I have multiple chances. I had no idea that any of this was in place before I started my lab and most of your senior advisors do not know either. But this could be make all the difference in your funding!