Published August 25, 2026, via Research News
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recently published funding policies and considerations for each NIH Institute, Center, and Office (ICO). These policies are based on NIH’s unified funding strategy and identify key topics that ICOs may consider when making funding decisions.
Investigators should review both NIH-wide policies and the funding policies and considerations specific to the relevant ICO when preparing applications. Because NIH continues to update its funding priorities, application requirements, and funding strategies, investigators are encouraged to monitor NIH policy notices, highlighted topics, and ICO-specific guidance regularly.
Core Tenets for NIH Funding Decisions
When making funding decisions, ICOs consider the following core tenets:
- Align proposed research with the NIH mission
- Prioritize scientific merit and consider peer review information in its entirety
- Integrate a breadth of topics and approaches relevant to the ICO’s priorities
- Consider investigator career stage and promote sustainability of the biomedical research workforce
- Promote broad distribution and geographic balance of funding, considering the total amount and type of NIH funding already available to each investigator.
- Align funding decisions with the availability of ICO funds.
NIH has also published links to ICO-specific funding policies and considerations. Investigators should review the policies of the relevant ICO, as individual institutes and centers may apply additional considerations when making funding decisions.
Changes to NIH Research Funding
NIH is making several changes to its approach to research funding opportunities and application policies:
- Greater reliance on broad funding opportunities: NIH is looking to move away from individual NOFOs and increase reliance on parent announcements and other broad funding opportunities.
- Six-application limit: Effective September 25, 2025, NIH will only accept six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications from an individual Principal Investigator, Program Director, or Multiple Principal Investigators across all council rounds in a calendar year. Only T activity codes and R13 Conference Grant applications are exempt. See NOT-OD-25-132 for additional information.
- End of Continuous Submission: The Continuous Submission Policy will end on August 10, 2026, for applications assigned to the January 2027 Council.
- Reclassification of Basic Experimental Studies with Humans (BESH): As of May 25, 2026, BESH are being reclassified and will no longer be considered clinical trials. Consequently, BESH studies will no longer be subject to NIH clinical trial requirements. See NOT-OD-26-032 and NOT-OD-26-067 for additional information.
- Letters of Collaboration: As part of the implementation of Form J, NIH will replace Letters of Support with Letters of Collaboration. The letter should document any collaborative relationship with individuals who are not identified in the application as senior/key personnel or other significant collaborators. The letters should not contain endorsements, additional information, or evaluations of the proposed project. Each individual Letter of Collaboration must not exceed 100 words. Examples are available in NOT-OD-26-094.
Implementing SimplerNOFO at NIH
NIH is implementing a pilot Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and is developing next steps to scale the use of the HHS SimplerNOFO initiative. (View an example of a published FY26 SimplerNOFO on Box.)
The Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (ESIs) NOFO is the first NIH funding opportunity to use the SimplerNOFO approach. The redesigned approach emphasizes clarity, usability, and a more intuitive experience for applicants.