Year: 2026

Planning to apply for an Extramural Loan Repayment Programs (LRP) Award? NIH has relaunched the LRP Award Calculator, a quick and easy tool that provides an estimate of your potential LRP award amount.  Simply enter your total qualifying educational loan debt and your annual income to see what you may be eligible to receive. 

Follow these tips to keep tabs on the latest NIH policies, processes, and resources to help as you develop your application or manage your award.  

NIH announced that Basic Experimental Studies with Humans (BESH) will no longer be considered clinical trials by the NIH. 

We are reporting on the number of early stage investigators (ESIs) supported on R01-equivalent awards in fiscal years (FYs) 2024 and 2025. ESIs are those who are within 10 years of their terminal degree or completion of clinical training and who have not yet been awarded a substantial NIH grant (R01-equivalent or more). 

NIH has launched a new resource focused on strengthening replication and reproducibility across NIH-funded research. The Strengthening Replication and Reproducibility of NIH-funded Research webpage serves as a centralized hub highlighting NIH’s ongoing efforts to promote rigorous, transparent, and reliable science. 

Simplifying administrative processes to reduce burden for the scientific community and the NIH is one of several ongoing NIH priorities for 2026. Towards this goal, HIV/AIDS-related applications submitted after May 7, 2026 will follow the general standard application receipt dates. Aligning the receipt dates will simplify the grant submission process for applicants, NIH receipt and referral processes, and   Notices of Funding Opportunities. 

NIH updated the How to Apply – Application Guide in December 2025 to reflect recent policy and procedure updates. Find details on all of the major changes and revisions since the last major release at Significant Changes. 

NIH (including help desks) will be closed on Monday, February 16, 2026 for the federal holiday (Washington's Birthday). If a grant application due date falls on a federal holiday, the application deadline is automatically extended to the next business day.

NIH implemented its Simplified Review Framework (SRF) for the peer review of the majority of competing research project grant (RPG) applications in summer 2025. How is it going?

You have two options to find Notices of Funding Opportunities: search on Grants.gov or use NIH’s new Explore NIH Opportunities tool. The NIH tool includes additional options for NIH-specific filters, sorting, and advanced search.