NIH Extramural Nexus (News)

“Inside Extramural at NIH” is a new feature that gives individual NIH institutes, Centers, and Offices a dedicated space to share updates on funding priorities, policies, initiatives, and resources relevant to their extramural research community.  In this inaugural post, we hear from the National Human Genome Research Institute, its Acting Director, as well as more about their extramural funding priorities, opportunities, relevant policies, and resources for the genomics research community. 

The NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) are programs established by Congress and designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or biobehavioral research careers. Applications for FY 2027 Extramural LRP awards will be accepted from September 1 until November 19, 2026.  

On July 28, 2026, the Administration released the U.S. Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research, pursuant to Executive Order 14292 on "Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research.” This new government-wide policy defines areas of life sciences research that pose the greatest risk to our nation's security, implements federal funding prohibitions, and establishes a framework for addressing risk and ensuring compliance. 

If you’re planning to apply for an NIH fellowship (F), career development award (K), or training grant (T), staying informed about recent NIH efforts to centralize peer review can help you understand how your application may be assigned and reviewed. 

We invite you to join a conversation between NIH leadership on NIH’s Unified Funding Strategy. 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; and help foster communication between NIH staff and research community.

What does scientific impact look like today? For decades, measures such as publication counts, citation rates, and grant funding have been primarily used to assess the success of researchers. Yet biomedical research has become increasingly collaborative, interdisciplinary, and data-intensive. Progress often depends on teams of investigators, shared datasets and software, rigorous validation of findings, and sustained mentorship and training efforts.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., announced the selection of Raymond H. Jacobson, Ph.D., as the director of NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR), which ensures expert and fair review of the tens of thousands of grant applications received by the agency each year. 

We are seeking your feedback on whether distributing Research Project Grants (RPGs) funding across more investigators could increase overall scientific productivity and innovation (see NOT-OD-26-086). Through this Request for Information (RFI), NIH is presenting a proposal as one possible approach to advance stewardship, workforce sustainability, and the goals of the NIH Unified Funding Strategy. Comments may be sent electronically here by August 3, 2026.

NIH’s Seed Fund is back, with new Small Business program funding available and several upcoming opportunities to help applicants develop strong applications. We also encourage you join us for a live event on June 9 to hear from NIH experts and become familiar with the new opportunities and more.

NIH supports international scientific collaboration when conducted transparently and in accordance with NIH requirements. The key expectation is timely and accurate disclosure of foreign components and related activities. Here we share reminders about how to properly acknowledge foreign components in NIH grant applications, progress reports, and manuscripts resulting from NIH awards.