Submitting your R00 proposal to transfer your K99 to your new job: a survival guide

You were awarded a K99/R00 Transition to Independence award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and you even have a tenure-track job lined up!! You have survived writing your K99 and you think you got this whole NIH thing down. Think again...

The K99/R00 is an wonderful initiative that helps young investigators in training to complete their postdocs and transition to an independent position with almost as much money as a second start-up. You are NIH funded which increases your chances of getting a job in the first place, but the NIH never makes up codes in vain and the name K99/R00 means that you actually have to apply for the R00 portion.

If you have done your homework, you have talked to your Program Official at the NIH throughout your job negotiation process and have had them review and approve the terms of your job offer. In fact, they have helped you define what those terms should be so that they comply with the rules and regulations attached to your NIH funding, in the sense that no institution can shortchange you because you already have a K99. I have a lag of almost a year between signing an offer and starting my job, but 6 months before my move, my PO already had me thinking about the transition. The Program Announcement (PA-16-077 as of May 2016) states that "The application for the R00 phase of the award must be submitted no later than 2 months prior to the proposed activation date of the R00 award by the R00 phase grantee organization." However, as always you have to BUDGET TIME well in advance, because since you're not at your new institution yet, everything will take twice as long.

This is what you R00 application should include, with added suggestions from what I just went through:

• A new face page signed by the R00 phase institutional representative. This is pretty straightforward and Sponsored Programs at your new institution will do, but remember there may be hoops, multiple signatures may need to be collected, last minute questions that send you scrambling from answers, and NIH regulations require everyone on the grant to be trained on Financial Conflict of Interest and to sign disclaimers (which you may have done at your current institution, but need to redo for the new one, so say goodbye to an afternoon).
• A new project description page (the project summary or abstract should be updated to reflect current plans for the R00 phase). This is fine, just update.
• Detailed budget pages for a non-modular budget. This is uncharted territory for non-budget savvy and it took me almost 2 full days with the help of a very responsive administrator, despite the fact that I had templates to follow. The K99 budget is very easy, but the R00 includes salaries, equipment, supplies, animals and other odd and ends like publications and travel, and you need to think about it to justify every single dime. You need quotes for equipment, updated amounts for salaries and fringe, estimates for animal costs and supplies. It's one thing if you're there and you can sit next to someone and go through the numbers with them, but if you're not, it can take a while. Also see this post for salary percentage negotiations.
• Biographical sketches. Just update, but remember that if you already have personnel listed on the grant, they'll need biosketches too.
• Other support. Just update.
• A new Resources page. Ha! This was a piece of cake at your postdoc institution, where you just copied your boss' R01. At the new place you have to figure out what's in the cores, where exactly is the equipment you know is there and what kind of access you are going to have. Your facility needs may not be same as those of other people, so you either get multiple lists or you have to rely on multiple people to give you tidbits of information. And again, you are not there. I was lucky as everyone was extremely helpful, but I had friends who had to fly back to the new place and gather everything that they needed in person.
• A brief description of progress made during the K99 phase that will serve as the Final Progress Report for the K99 phase. If you did a Year 1 report, it's the same format as described in the Program Announcement, but just a final report. You better have done some of the work, because I heard the NIH can give you grief if you have not actually worked on the project.
• A final evaluation statement by the K99 phase mentor. Nice long letter detailing how wonderful you are and all the mentoring you received during the mentoring phase. Basically take the mentoring plan and rewrite it in the past tense.
• An updated research plan (the specific aims should be updated to reflect current plans for the R00 phase and the updated research plan should be briefly described in less than 5 pages). I heard conflicting reports on this: some people submitted a slightly modified version of the K99 proposal continuing on that work and some had to do a major overhaul which is equivalent to writing a new grant. I did a pretty substantial rewrite adding new experiments to follow up the old Specific Aims, so it was time consuming. In general I find short formats much more difficult to write and 5 pages for Significance, Innovation, and Approach including Preliminary Data is not much.
• A letter from the R00 Department or Division Chairman describing the R00 institution's commitment to the candidate and plans for his/her career development. This is similar to the institutional commitment letter for the K99 portion, but it should relate to your new institution. It should also detail the search process to get to you as the best candidate for the position, describe your hiring package and the faculty development programs at the new place. Chairs are busy...letters take time.
• A new checklist. Sponsored Programs will do when they assemble the application.
• IACUC or IRB approval. If you work with vertebrates or humans they will ask you for your protocol approval. If you are like most people you will not have started these in advance, but beware since they may hold up your grant until these are approved, which could mean another couple of months.

A friend told me it took much longer that she had anticipated and she was absolutely right. You are getting ready to leave and you have a million and a half things to do in the lab, in addition to dealing with moving your personal life somewhere else. It is true that the R00 is reviewed internally and it's not going to a study section, BUT it's still a major NIH grant and you are asking the government for $750,000, so it should be done well.  Also remember a little known secret, the unspent part of your K99 will go away if you transition earlier than the 2 years, so be warned.

I'll follow up on what happens with my application. Remember to visit the Writing Grants page for more posts and links.
Note: around 5 weeks after submission my R00 was approved with flying colors....and no funding was cut because of sequestration!