Finding NIH Funding Opportunities

US dollar bill and change

NIH publishes funding opportunities and notices in the NIH Guide daily. For those that subscribe, NIH will send  Weekly NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices emails to the NIH Guide LISTSERV, which summarizes postings for the week.

Best Practices

  • NIH Institutes and Centres (ICs) highlight research priorities on their IC-specific websites. Many ICs offer ‘Email Update’ subscriptions.
  • Investigators are encouraged to read Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA) of interest thoroughly and contact the appropriate scientific program staff at the Institute or Centre to discuss the relevancy and/or focus of their proposed research before developing an application.

Types of Grant Programs

NIH uses activity codes (e.g. R01, R43, etc.) to differentiate a wide variety of research-related programs. For an activity code overview, see NIH's types of grants programs.

NIH ICs may vary in the way they use activity codes; not all ICs accept applications for all types of grant programs, or they apply specialized eligibility criteria.

Best Practices

  • Review IC websites for specific funding policies, such as IC-specific/atypical grant durations.
  • Read FOAs carefully to determine which ICs participate, and to determine eligibility specifics. 

Eligibility – Foreign Entities

For Western University participation, the FOA must state that non-domestic (non U.S.) entities (foreign institutions) are eligible to apply, if leading an application; and/or non-domestic components are eligible to apply, if participating as a subrecipient. 

Contact

For more information, contact Research Services.