Key Dates

Related Announcements

None

Issued by

Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health (OD)

Purpose

NIH is updating its Career Development (K) Award programs. These updates include: 

• Consolidating individual K notice of funding opportunities (NOFOs). 
• Eliminating the requirement for data management and sharing (DMS) plans on Ks. 
• Clarifying allowable uses of K award funds for clinical trial research activities.

Background

• A key NIH priority is training future biomedical and clinician scientists (see Unified NIH Funding Strategy). 
• NIH K awards support early- and mid-career researchers across a wide range of scientific fields to strengthen the biomedical research workforce. 
• These programs provide protected time, mentoring, and career development experiences to help researchers become independent.

The updates are intended to improve consistency, reduce administrative burden, and align policies across K award programs, beginning with due dates on or after October 12, 2027.

Updates to K Programs

Program Update 1: Consolidating Individual K Funding Opportunities 

NIH is consolidating individual K award notices of funding opportunity (NOFOs) into a streamlined set of parent NOFOs organized by program type.  This reorganization is intended to make it easier for applicants to find the right funding opportunity and to improve clarity regarding eligibility requirements and review criteria. 

The following table provides a crosswalk identifying current K award activity codes and NOFOs and their new corresponding parent NOFOs and activity codes:

Activity codes not affected by these changes:

• K00 (Postdoctoral Transition) 
• K43 (International Research Career Development)
• K12 (Institutional Career Development Awards)
• K76 (Emerging Leaders Career Development Award)

This reorganization does not change NIH's commitment to supporting a comprehensive career development portfolio.  Rather, it establishes a streamlined foundation for NIH's career development award portfolio. NIH may develop additional career development NOFOs in the future as needed to address emerging career development goals and workforce needs.

Program Update 2: Data Management and Sharing Plans No Longer Required for K Awards

K award applications will no longer require a Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Plan.

The NIH DMS Policy (NIH Grants Policy Statement 8.2.3.2) was designed primarily for research projects that generate significant scientific data.  Because K awards focus on career development and do not provide primary support for research projects, the DMS Plan requirement is not well-suited for this award type.  Removing this requirement reduces administrative burden for applicants and institutions while better aligning K award expectations with their core career development purpose.

Program Update 3: Clarifying Allowable Uses of K Award Funds for Clinical Trial Research Activities.

To better align K awards with their primary purpose of career development:

• NIH will no longer support 'Independent Clinical Trial Required' K award NOFOs. 
• K award funds may not be used to support the conduct of a clinical trial, clinical trial feasibility study, or ancillary study to an existing clinical trial. 
• K awardees may gain clinical trial experience by participating in a trial led by a mentor or co-mentor.
• K awardees who wish to lead a clinical trial as PI must secure separate funding (e.g., institutional, philanthropic, or other grant awards) to support those activities.

NIH recognizes the importance of supporting the development of scientists who can lead rigorous clinical trials. We are actively working on additional strategies focused on this need and will provide more information when available.

Any active NOFO that uses the current K Activity Codes, except the K00, K12, K43, and K76 mentioned above, will be expired by July 13, 2027.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Division of Biomedical Research Workforce
Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health 
[email protected]