NIH Extramural Nexus (News)

Finding the right funding opportunity as an early career investigator can feel overwhelming but understanding the NIH funding landscape can help inform your choice. 

As part of NIH's broader effort to simplify the funding landscape, we’re pleased to highlight three new parent funding opportunities under the NIH Research Education Program (R25). Similar to updates to career development, loan repayment, and predoctoral/postdoctoral transition programs, these new research education programs provide a simpler framework for supporting research education activities while helping NIH develop the scientific workforce of the future.

Nearly two decades ago, we began allowing more than one researcher to be designated as program director/principal investigator on a single grant award. The multiple PD/PI (MPI) model can provide important benefits, including giving each investigator credit as an NIH-designated PD/PI, but it is not required to conduct collaborative or team science. Here, we revisit when multiple PD/PIs may make sense, as well as some of the responsibilities and potential drawbacks investigators should consider.

As part of NIH's ongoing efforts to provide transparency into funding trends, updated NIH data show the median age at which investigators receive their first R01-equivalent award remains around 42 years of age through fiscal year (FY) 2025. 

NIH supports an array of data and biospecimen repositories to help ensure valuable scientific resources are available to researchers. Many repositories link biospecimens to rich clinical, phenotypic, imaging, genomic, or longitudinal datasets, allowing researchers to validate findings across data types and apply modern analytical approaches. Here, we discuss the policies and principles governing data management and repositories. Then, we spotlight selected examples of NIH-supported repositories.

As we celebrate our nation’s birthday and in the spirit of charting new paths, NIH is pleased to announce a new parent funding opportunity designed to help promising Ph.D. students take an important step toward research independence.

NIH’s policies and funding approaches are designed to maintain strong support for investigator-initiated fundamental research. NIH’s Gold Standard Science plan explains that our priority-setting processes provide strong support for hypothesis-driven research while balancing opportunities to support other forms of research. Advancing foundational knowledge of human health and disease is a stated goal for the next NIH-wide strategic plan. Here we discuss NIH’s continued commitment in this area.

In March 2025, NIH announced that all peer review would be centralized within the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) (see also this NIH Guide Notice). As the one-year anniversary approaches, we are providing an update on the consolidation and its initial effects on the peer-review process. 

We invite input by April 17, 2026 on a Proposed Clinical Trial-Specific Application Form for investigator-initiated clinical trials. 

NIH is streamlining the landscape for Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs, or funding opportunities) and the application process. We are placing greater emphasis on investigator-initiated science rather than asking researchers to align their work with highly specific funding opportunities.