NIH T32 Payback Agreement

[beginner2011]

I recently ended my T32 part of the way through the second year, so I am subject to the NIH payback agreement. No one at my institution was able to provide any insight, as they haven't had anyone leave early before (to their knowledge), and after speaking to the folks at NIH I'm a bit confused about how to complete the obligation.

I've taken a position at a large local group practice as a staff psychologist where my salary is dependent on direct contact hours. However, there are some opportunities to be involved in research and training activities. The NIH payback specialist I spoke to indicated that there was a lot of flexibility in what might be considered "research or training" activities, and also suggested that there was essentially no end date by which I had to meet the payback hour requirement, as long as I was continuing to put effort toward "research or training" activities. When I shared with them I was considering just paying the whole thing back in a lump sum they were shocked and seemed somewhat offended.

Does anyone have experience with the payback agreement? I'd really like to have a conversation with someone who has direct experience navigating this side of things with NIH.

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[Ollie123]

Afraid not here. Everyone I know on a T32 either stuck around for all of year 2 or left for a faculty role (where research/training involvement was more readily apparent).

I wasn't even aware it didn't have an end date, I thought it had to be 20 hours/week within x years. If you just owe one month or something I could understand the desire to pay it off and be done, but if we're talking a full year at 52k salary (or whatever postdoc base pay is now) I wouldn't leap straight to that. It sounds like they are willing to work with you. "Research" is amorphous and ambiguous. While I'm not encouraging you to cheat the system, could you spend ~10 hours/week "working on a literature review" or reanalyzing dissertation data? I don't know exactly where the boundaries lie or if you'd ever even need a product to show.