NIH Extramural Nexus (News)

The primary method to find contract solicitations is the federal-wide System for Award Management website (SAM.gov), which lists federal contracting opportunities higher than $20,000.

NIH recently updated its annual categorical information with actual spending data for fiscal year (FY) 2025. Available on the Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC) page, you will find the annual support level for various research, condition, and disease categories. 

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.

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 Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs) communicate their research priorities through a variety of channels. For example, general interest areas may be discussed on an ICOs’ profile page or they may be expressed through a specific Highlighted Topic. In any case, the ICO may fund research in a wide range of scientific areas within their mission, whether or not they are explicitly identified as a particular Highlighted Topic.

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 has released its first Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) under the new Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) SimplerNOFO initiative, which aims to make funding opportunities more accessible, understandable, and actionable for applicants.

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.

Watch NIH’s 6-minute overview of the new Collaborative International Research Project (PF5) award structure to learn key features, application format, and how applications may be split into linked awards after review and before Just-in-Time requests.

Fiscal year 2025 data in the NIH Data Book are currently being rolled out, ensuring users have access to the most recent information available.