Search Tips for NIH Opportunities

Tips for NIH's Explore Grant Opportunities Tool

The Explore NIH Grant Opportunities tool provides NIH-specific filters, table sorting, and advanced search options to help you quickly identify funding opportunities posted on Grants.gov.

You can hover your mouse or click on the small icons for an explanation of each interface option.

Select the Funding Category, filter by Funding Organization, and/or enter Keywords to refine your search results.

The Keyword search supports these options:

• To find exact words or phrases, place in quotation marks. E.g., "Clinical Trials"
• To find all words or phrases, place a plus sign between the words. E.g., Clinical + Trials
• To remove certain words or phrases, place a plus and a minus symbol before words. E.g., +-Diabetes

The Advanced Search includes Release Date Range, Application Types Allowed, Activity Code, Clinical Trials, and more.

Above the table of results, you can choose between Table View and Detailed View. Try both and decide which you like best.

To save your customized search, you can:

• Export Results — Download in CSV spreadsheet format
• Share Results — Copy a custom URL link for yourself or others to use

Tips for Grants.gov Searches

Grants.gov offers two search interface options:

• Classic Search
• Simpler Search — New

Both Grants.gov options support Keyword searches and filters for Opportunity Status, Funding Instrument, Eligibility, Agency, and more. You can export search results and log in to save your favorite searches.

The Simpler Search option allows you to copy search queries as links to share with others. Here are examples of shared search links:

• Search open and forecasted NIH opportunities
• Search open and forecasted NIH opportunities for keyword “cancer”

How the Keyword fields work also differs for each search option:

• Classic Search uses Search Operands (e.g., quotation marks, AND, OR) in the Keyword field.
• Simpler Search provides clickable options below the Keyword field instead.

You may also notice that the Classic Search includes a field for the Assistance Listing Number (ALN). On Simpler Search, you would search for the ALN using the Keywords field instead.

Get Email Notifications of New Grant Opportunities

Use Grants.gov Subscriptions to get email notifications of new opportunities and your saved custom search results.

Direct any questions about Grants.gov subscriptions to the Grants.gov Support Center.

How to Download the Full Announcement on Grants.gov

For any opportunity of interest, follow these steps to locate and download the full announcement:

1. Click the link to the grant opportunity synopsis, e.g., RFA-RM-25-006.
2. Click the “Related Documents” button near the top.
3. In the File Description column, click the small down arrow icon: ▼
4. In the File Name column, click the link to the full announcement HTML file.
5. Find the Downloads folder of your web browser.
6. Open the HTML file from the Downloads folder. 

Direct any questions about Grants.gov to the Grants.gov Support Center.

Learn More About NIH Funding

Visit the Funding section for additional ways to explore NIH funding categories, find a fit for your research, funding data, and official notices.