NIH Grants and Funding
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NIH Staff 
Our Mission
OER provides the corporate framework for NIH research administration, ensuring scientific integrity, public accountability, and effective stewardship of the NIH extramural research portfolio. It oversees activities related, but not limited to, high-profile digital platforms, grant compliance, peer review, communications with the extramural community, scientific misconduct, human subjects protection, and laboratory animal welfare.
Overview:
The OER is an office within the NIH Office of the Director. OER supports the entire NIH extramural research community by providing policy, guidance, systems, and other support to the recipient community as well as to the 24 NIH Institutes and Centers that award grants. OER serves as a vital interface for the biomedical research community by guiding investigators and their institutions through the process of attaining grants funding and helping them understand and navigate through federal policies and procedures.
Responsibilities:
- Provide authoritative resources for the corporate framework for all phases of NIH extramural research funding (e.g., eRA, NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts, NIH Data Book)
- Implement and inform infrastructure, policies, processes, and procedures that enable the execution of NIH extramural research programs (e.g., Funding Opportunities, staff training, Loan Repayment Program, SBIR/STTR)
- Ensure the integrity of and compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and policies that govern NIH extramural research funding. (e.g., awards oversight, research misconduct, peer review integrity, clinical trials, animal welfare)
- Develop, assess, and enhance NIH policies and programs that support the training, career development and education of a diverse biomedical research workforce, incorporating analyses of national workforce trends and needs.
Key Successes and NIH-Wide Initiatives 2020-2022
Success Stories:
- Responding rapidly to the pandemic by providing and communicating guidance and flexibility to support the biomedical research community.
- Addressing integrity threats due to research misconduct, breaches of peer review confidentiality, inappropriate foreign influences, harassment and discrimination in the scientific workplace.
- Enhancing electronic resources to improve automation, reduce burden, and simplify data access, including modernizing RePORT and RePORTER.
- Providing new trans-NIH web resources:
- the SEED website, a one-stop-shop for Small Business Program (SBIR/STTR) and academic entrepreneurship resources from across the NIH
- the Scientific Data Sharing website, a central portal providing information on both NIH-wide and NIH institute and center-specific sharing policies and data repositories in a way that is easily sortable and searchable
- Migrating eRA modules to the cloud.
NIH-Wide Initiatives:
- Co-chairing the extramural research ecosystem-focused NIH UNITE Committee E to end structural racism in the extramural biomedical research enterprise.
- Providing subject-matter expertise to the development of the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan; the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for COVID-19 Research; and, the forthcoming NIH-wide Strategic Plan for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility.
- Launching the Stephen I. Katz Award in support of the Next Generation Researchers Initiative.
- Continuing to implement provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act, such as to reduce administrative burden associated with laboratory animal research programs while at the same time preserving the integrity and credibility of research findings and the protection of animals.
