What is the deferral policy for PLACER?

PCORI will pilot the application submission deferral process for the PLACER PFA. Deferrals are available to applicants who submitted an LOI to the PLACER PFA and are invited to submit a full application. Applicants will be limited to two sequential deferrals, which may cross funding cycle years (e.g., an applicant who is invited to submit a full application for Cycle 2 2023 may defer submission to Cycle 3 2023 and then may potentially again request a deferral to Cycle 1 2024).

To request a deferral, the Principal Investigator (PI) must email pfa@pcori.org prior to the application deadline, copying the institutional Administrative Official (AO). For a request to be granted, the deferral request must be submitted before the application deadline, and the AO must be included in the request email. As noted above, applicants will be limited to two deferrals. Applicants will be notified of the status of their request within one business day of its receipt. 

Within each cycle of the PLACER PFA, applicants are permitted to submit multiple LOIs, provided they are scientifically distinct.  If an applicant has deferred an application submission to a given cycle, they may NOT submit another LOI with significant scientific overlap to the deferred application within that cycle.

Under this pilot program, applicants will not need to re-upload their LOI or re-complete application fields for the next cycle to which they deferred within PCORI Online. Deferral requests received after the application deadline will be rejected, and applicants will be encouraged to submit a new LOI for the next posted cycle.