NIH Seeks High Risk, High Impact Proposals through NIH Director's Pioneer, New Innovator, and Transformative R01 Initiatives

NIH welcomes proposals for 2010 NIH Director's Pioneer Awards and New Innovator Awards. Both programs are part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov) and support exceptionally creative scientists who take highly innovative, potentially high-impact approaches to major challenges in biomedical or behavioral research.

Pioneer Awards provide up to $2.5 million in direct costs over 5 years and are open to scientists at any career stage. New Innovator Awards provide up to $1.5 million in direct costs over the same period and are for early stage investigators (ESI) who have not received an NIH regular research (R01) or similar NIH grant.

NIH expects to make at least 7 Pioneer Awards and at least 33 New Innovator Awards in September 2010.

To continue its strong record of diversity in these programs, NIH especially encourages women and members of groups that are underrepresented in NIH research to apply.The deadline for submitting Pioneer Award applications is October 20, 2009. See the instructions in the RFA (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-RM-09-010.html, RFA-RM-09-010) and http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer for more information. Send questions to pioneer@nih.gov.

The deadline for submitting New Innovator Award applications is October 27, 2009. See the instructions in the RFA (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-RM-09-011.html, RFA-RM-09-011) and http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/newinnovator for more information. Send questions to newinnovator@nih.gov.

Transformative R01 Program The Transformative R01 (T-R01) supports exceptionally innovative, high risk, original and/or unconventional research projects that have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms. Please check http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01 for more information about the program and upcoming funding opportunities.

The NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, launched in 2004, is a series of initiatives designed to address fundamental knowledge gaps, develop transformative tools and technologies, and/or foster innovative approaches to complex problems. Funded through the NIH Common Fund, these programs cut across the missions of individual NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) and are intended to accelerate the translation of research to improvements in public health. Additional information about the NIH Roadmap and Common Fund can be found at www.nihroadmap.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) –“The Nation's Medical Research Agency” – includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.