Key Dates

Related Announcements

October 1, 2025 – Information for the NIH Extramural Community During the Lapse of Federal Government Funding. See Notice NOT-OD-26-004.

Issued by

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)

Purpose

This notice is to provide NIH’s extramural community with information on how NIH is resuming operations after the government shutdown.

Rescheduling October Application Due Dates

All grant applications submitted late for due dates between October 1, 2025, and December 5, 2025, will be accepted through 5:00 PM local time December 8, 2025. There is no additional 2-week late window. This notice applies to all relevant Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), including those that indicate no late applications will be accepted. Institutions need not request advance permission to submit late due to the government shutdown and a cover letter providing a justification is not required.

Post-submission Materials

For applications for January 2026 Council, NIH will accept post-submission materials, as described in NOT-OD-19-083, up to one week before the scheduled peer review meeting.

For all applications for May 2026 Council, NIH will accept a one-page update with preliminary data as post-submission materials for applications submitted under all activity codes, ONLY if the NOFO used for submission allowed preliminary data in the application. One page of preliminary data will be accepted for single component applications or for each component of a multi-component application. The deadline for submitting all post-submission materials, including preliminary data, will be 30 days before the study section meeting. All other materials listed in NOT-OD-19-083 as acceptable post-submission materials will continue to be accepted if submitted 30 days before the study section meeting. Instructions for submission are included in NOT-OD-19-083.

Research Performance Progress Report Submitted to NIH During the Shutdown

Recipients that submitted their Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) that were due between October 1 and November 13 should not have to resubmit their reports, unless the institution receives a request from the funding Institute, Center, or Office.  If you had submission challenges during the shutdown, contact staff at the appropriate ICO.

Rescheduling Peer Review Meetings
The shutdown required that NIH cancel over 370 peer review meetings, impacting the review of over 24,000 applications. The volume of missed meetings complicates NIH efforts to catch up. In order for these applications to be considered in the January council as originally planned, the following modifications in peer review practices will be made:

• The percent of applications discussed in most meetings will be reduced to 30-35%, instead of the current ~50%.
• Applications voted by the committee to be in the middle third will be designated as “competitive but not discussed” and applications in the lowest third will be designated as “not competitive and not discussed”.  Applications in the middle third will be considered for funding, along with the discussed applications.
• Summary statements will be simplified. Narrative paragraphs summarizing committee discussion will not be used. Instead, summaries will have a sentence describing the degree of consensus in the committee vote, plus bullets listing the main score driving points.  Summaries for all applications will contain the written critiques from the 3 assigned reviewers, as is currently the case. Summaries for applications that are discussed will have the overall impact score.

The delay in reviewing applications submitted for the January council creates a situation where peer review-related work for the January council will overlap with that of the May 2026 council. For that reason, the modifications in review practices outlined above will be in place through the May 2026 Advisory Council.

Early Stage Investigator Eligibility
NIH will automatically adjust the Early Stage Investigator (ESI) status for applicants whose status has changed during the period of delay caused by the shutdown.

K99/R00 Eligibility
Information updating timelines for the K99/R00 NIH Pathway to Independence Award program will be issued separately.

Loan Repayment Program

The Extramural LRP Application Submission Deadline is now December 4, 2025. Refer to: NOT-OD-26-010 for more details.

Payment Management System
Payments through the Payment Management System (PMS) should be processing as usual. If recipients received a communication during the shutdown that a drawdown request was on hold, please contact PMS directly to determine the status of that pending request.

Financial Operations under a Continuing Resolution
NIH has published a Notice on our financial operations under a continuing resolution within the next few business days. Refer to: NOT-OD-26-011.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration
[email protected]