NIH Extramural Nexus (News)

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. 

NIH has a step-by-step guide available for linking an ORCID iD to an eRA Commons account.

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.

A ClinicalTrials.gov study record is intended to summarize key information from a study’s protocol and the study’s findings. The study sponsor or investigator is responsible for ensuring that their studies follow all applicable laws and regulations and for submitting complete, accurate, and up-to-date information about their study.

For most career development (K) award programs, the K award recipient must commit at the minimum 9 person months, equivalent to 75% full-time professional effort, directly to their research project and career development activities. The recipient can devote the remaining effort (up to 25%) to additional research, teaching, clinical work, or other efforts complementary to their career development.

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.

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to powerful new advances in biomedical research. Alongside these NIH-supported scientific advances and priority research areas involving AI, we have also occasionally observed challenges with the use of these tools that affect the integrity of the science we support. Today, we are sharing some helpful reminders on the appropriate use of AI tools when applying, managing awards, and conducting the research process itself.

We remain committed to ensuring safe, respectful, and harassment-free research environments wherever NIH-supported research is conducted. NIH grant recipients, through their institution’s leadership, faculty, and Authorized Organizational Representatives (AORs), are essential for sustaining this commitment.

NIH announced that Basic Experimental Studies with Humans (BESH) will no longer be considered clinical trials by the NIH. 

Blog co-authored by Dr. Lyric Jorgenson, Associate Director for Science Policy, and Dr. Jon Lorsch, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research.
Throughout the year we advanced a policy agenda that was based on two interlocking principles. The first principle involved pro-actively anticipating policy needs that would drive biomedical research. The second was to ensure that we cut unnecessary red tape to the maximum extent possible.