NIH Extramural Nexus (News)

In July 2025, NIH announced it will no longer develop new funding opportunities focused exclusively on animal models of human disease. Rather, going forward, new funding opportunities will be designed more broadly with language that also encourages various approaches be considered.

Updated funding opportunities for NIH fellowships are below and also available on the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts and Grants.gov. NIH fellowships are open to early career scientists, including at the predoctoral and postdoctoral level, and are designed to provide mentored research training to enable skills’ development and experiences needed to transition into careers in the biomedical research workforce. 

On April 29, NIH announced it is prioritizing human-focused research and reducing animal use in research. To further this initiative, all new Notices of Funding Opportunity that relate to animal model systems (NOFOs) must now also support human-focused approaches such as clinical trials, real world data, or new approach methods (NAMs).

We are transitioning our Extramural Nexus email distribution to the NIH Listserv system, where we will continue to provide updates on grants policies, processes, and resources for the research community. Please take a moment to manage your subscription preferences. 

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. Extramural LRP applications will be accepted from September 1 until November 20, 2025.

As a reminder, NIH is implementing its new 2024 Public Access Policy on July 1, 2025. In preparation for that update, we have launched a series of new and revised Public Access Policy pages on the NIH Grants & Funding site.

NIH published the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan for Data Science, outlining five key goals that will shape the research data landscape. This strategic plan will encourage greater integration of data science to improve access to and use of biomedical and behavioral data.

NIH has simplified peer review for most research project grants for application due dates of January 25, 2025 or later to address the complexity of the peer review process and the potential for reputational bias to affect peer review outcomes. The initial applications are under review during summer study section meetings within the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR).

We often recommend the NIH RePORT (Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools) site to applicants & recipients because it publicly provides reports, data, and analyses of NIH research activities, including information on NIH expenditures and the results of NIH-supported research. Learn more about RePORT and other federal funding databases in this post. 

The NIH Research Training and Career Development website content has a new home on the NIH Grants and Funding website, now closer to the funding and application process information you need to get started!