NIDDK Funding Policies and Considerations

Fiscal Year 2026 Award Funding Guidelines

NIDDK supports basic and clinical research through investigator-initiated grants, center grants, cooperative agreements, career development and training awards, and contracts.

The Institute developed and issued a Strategic Plan to accelerate research into the causes, treatment, and prevention of diseases and conditions under the Institute’s mission. NIDDK will make funding decisions in general alignment with priorities in the Strategic Plan.

General Funding Guidelines:

• In making funding decisions, NIDDK will consider factors that include peer review outcomes, alignment with priorities in the Strategic plan, alignment with NIH priorities, portfolio balance, and the investigator(s) other research support.
• All grant awards will be subject to programmatic adjustments from the NIDDK Advisory Council approved levels.
• NIDDK is committed to maximizing the number of projects it supports. Therefore, R01 applications requesting an average of less than $500,000 in direct costs/year will be prioritized.
• Fostering the success of investigators establishing careers in biomedical research is a high priority of the NIDDK and NIH.
  • NIDDK will place special emphasis on supporting Early-Stage Investigators.
  • In addition, when possible and appropriate the full period of support recommended will be awarded to ESIs.
  • Only one award per eligible ESI will receive special emphasis consideration. If an award is made to an eligible ESI, any other eligible applications from that investigator will be considered for funding based on the standard.
  • First competitive renewal applications for R01 awards to researchers who were ESIs when they competed for the initial NIDDK Type 1 R01 award will also be given additional consideration and prioritization.

Bridge Support

NIDDK will consider interim support on a very limited case-by-case basis for promising R01competing applications that are not awarded. 

• In these cases, NIDDK can choose to award a one- or two-year R56 grant.
• These awards provide support for investigators to collect preliminary data and use these data to revise and improve their R01 applications.

Duration of Grant Support

Competing awards may be adjusted to achieve a 4-year average duration for research project grants. Applications from ESIs, program project grants, and clinical trial grants are generally awarded for the full length of their recommended project period.

HIV/AIDS Research

HIV/AIDS related applications will receive additional consideration in the context of NIH’s HIV/AIDS research priorities as well as programmatic relevance to the NIDDK mission.