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NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)

Purpose

We invite you to join a conversation between NIH leadership on NIH's Unified Funding Strategy on August 14, 2026.

Our Unified Funding Strategy is designed to support NIH Institutes and Centers to make informed, transparent, and flexible funding decisions. During their conversation, NIH leadership will:

• Clarify the approach's rationale, goals, and implementation across NIH
• Address misconceptions 
• Help foster communication between NIH staff and applicants, recipients, researchers, and the wider research community

In August 2025, NIH Director Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya announced NIH's Unified Funding Strategy. This effort empowers Institute, Center, and Office Directors to make funding decisions that consider peer review assessments of scientific merit, Institute/Center priorities, scientific opportunity, program balance, geographic balance, and workforce needs, which will be consistently applied across the agency. Moreover, it reinforces how central and foundational NIH peer review is for assessing scientific and technical merit of proposed research ideas. The Unified Funding Strategy builds on these principles, allowing NIH to consider the full range of reviewer feedback, including scientific strengths, concerns, differing expert opinions, and indicators of innovation or high-risk/high-reward research. You can learn more about NIH's Unified Funding Strategy on this NIH Extramural Nexus article from November 2025 and IC Director perspectives in February 2026. 

• What: Understanding NIH's Unified Funding Strategy: What the Research Community Needs to Know
• When: Friday, August 14, 2026, 10-11 a.m. ET 
  • Where: NIH Videocast – Register here
• Who: Members of the research community, including researchers at all career stages, institutional officials and staff, peer reviewers, professional societies, and the public  

Panelists include:

• Matthew Memoli, M.D., NIH Principal Deputy Director
• Jon Lorsch, Ph.D., NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research 
• Ray Jacobson, Ph.D., Director, Center for Scientific Review 
• Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D., Director, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering 
• Nora Volkow, M.D., Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Karl Malik, Ph.D., Director, Division of Extramural Activities, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases  

Questions may be sent in advance on the registration page for consideration. You will receive an email notification once registered. A recording will also be made available after the event.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate in this event should contact the NIH Office of Communications and Public Liaison at [email protected].

Questions: [email protected]