NIH A Guided Tour
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1.2 Overview of NIH
1. About the NIH (National Institutes of Health)
The NIH an agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) and is comprised of 27 Institutes and Centers, each with a specific research agenda, often focusing on particular diseases or body systems.
The NIH is funded by congress. It guides America's efforts in medical research, and investigates the causes, treatments, and preventive strategies for both common and rare diseases to help lead the way toward important medical discoveries that improve people's health and save lives. Its goal is to uncover new knowledge that will help prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat disease and disability.
The director of NIH is Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.. He began his term on August 17, 2009 as the 16th director of the NIH. Dr. Collins was nominated by President Barack Obama on July 8, and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 7,2019.
NIH Awards
The NIH invests nearly $30.1 billion annually in medical research for the American people.
More than 80% of the NIH's funding is awarded through almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state and around the world.
In 2014, Stanford ranked 1st in NIH funding, receiving $271,700,052 towards 629 awards.
About 10% of the NIH's budget supports projects conducted by nearly 6,000 scientists in its own laboratories, most of which are on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIH success is based on the success of the scientists it supports.
Setting Priorities for Funding
Given the importance of medical research in fighting disease and improving the nation's health, the enormous range of possible subjects of research, and the thousands of talented investigators who seek funding, the NIH must make choices about where and how it spends its money.
Setting priorities is a phrase that is shorthand for the application of principles and mechanisms the NIH uses for evaluation and judgment. Making choices is complex and often difficult: NIH's mission and its history demonstrate that no one thing, no single disease, no single investigator, no single institute, no single method of funding research comes first or claims permanent priority over others.
2. Extramural Research Solicitations
NIH solicits applications for extramural research funding. The solicitations have a number of names:
- Program announcement (PA)
- Request for Application (RFA)
- Request for Proposal (RFP)
- Parent Announcements (unsolicited/investigator initiated)
3. Evaluation Criteria
When assessing the scientific merit of an application, all NIH review committees use the same criteria:
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Significance: ability of the project to improve health
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Approach: feasibility of the methods and appropriateness of the budget
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Innovation: originality of the approach
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Investigator: training and experience of investigators
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Environment: suitability of facilities and adequacy of support from your institution
Though peer reviewers don't score applications strictly by review criteria, the criteria are gauges for assessing scientific merit and feasibility. To a large extent, reviewers judge applications against their ideal outstanding application in the field of science. This is analogous to a dog show, where breeds are judged against their own standard for their breed, but different breeds do not compete with each other.
Principal Investigators can contact NIH to discuss issues.
4. NIH Award Mechanisms
Contracts
Contracts are initiated by NIH to buy products and services to support, conduct and acquire both basic and applied behavioral and biomedical research.
Product acquisitions range from basic office, medical and information technology supplies and equipment to sophisticated state-of-the-art biomedical equipment and systems.
Service acquisitions range from building construction and management consulting, to complex clinical trials.
Examples: N 01, N 02, N 41, N 42, N 43, N 44
Grants
Grants provide financial assistance for peer reviewed and approved research activities. Responsibility for performance is the grantee's with little or no government involvement in the research.
Examples:
- Research Grant
- Research Center Grants,
- Other Research
- Training Grants
- Fellowships
- Career Awards (Ks)
Cooperative Agreements (generally referred to as a grant)
Cooperative agreements are a mechanism for collaboration between government and outside scientists that legally defines intellectual property rights and financial and other responsibilities. They are usually initiated by NIH, involve substantial NIH involvement.
Examples:
- U 01, Research Project Cooperative Agreements
- U 13, Conference Cooperative Agreements
- U 19, Research Program Cooperative Agreements
- U 24, Resource-Related Research Projects Cooperative Agreements
- U 43, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Cooperative Agreements Phase I
- U 44, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Cooperative Agreements Phase II
- U 54, Specialized Centers Cooperative Agreements
- U 56, Exploratory Grants Cooperative Agreements
- UC 1, NIH Challenge Grants and Partnerships Program Phase II Cooperative Agreements (NIAID)
5. Subscribe to NIH Announcements
Be informed! Subscribe to NIH announcements.
