Here’s a New Year’s resolution that could yield positive results: Learn how to better navigate the NIH grants application and award process. One avenue to take? Explore NIH’s robust All About Grants Podcasts.
In each 10- to 20-minute episode, podcast hosts from NIH’s Office of Extramural Research discuss the latest on research funding with NIH staff experts. Find the List of All Episodes or filter by the following categories:
- Preparing To Apply
- Developing A Successful Grant Application
- Advice For New & Early Career Scientists
- Submitting Your Application
- Peer Review
- Post-Award Activities & Requirements
- Special Programs
Here’s a sampling of recent podcasts to get you started:
- Fellowships and What’s Changing. As you’ve been reading about in NIAID Funding News, the application and peer review processes are changing for fellowship applications due on or after January 25, 2025. Find out more about what the changes are, what to consider when putting an application together, and get fresh tips on science and training plans, mentors, and more.
- Ins and Outs of Training Grants (miniseries, part 1) and Ins and Outs of Training Grants (miniseries, part 2). Institutional training grants help prepare undergraduates, predoctoral, and postdoctoral scholars for careers in biomedical and behavioral research. Dive into how to develop training grant applications and learn about the review process, post-award monitoring, and mentorship. Though the discussions focus on T32 and T34 awards, the advice is generally applicable to other training grant programs.
- Allowable Costs for Clinical Research Participation. When you’re thinking about participant recruitment in NIH-supported clinical studies, make sure you are planning for recruiting and retaining people across the lifespan, women, and racial and ethnic minorities, while also considering which costs may be allowable throughout the project for their participation. Listen to an NIH senior inclusion specialist and a senior grants policy analyst discuss topics including what costs may be appropriate for clinical research, the relationship to inclusion of research participants, unintended costs, and developing budgets.
- Growing ORCIDS. Senior and key personnel designated on NIH grant applications will be required to have an ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor Identification) linked to their eRA Commons profile by May 2025, but why wait until then? Hear about how an ORCID will help as you publish your papers, how you can use it in SciENcv, where to go with questions, and much more. ORCID registration is easy and free.
- Why Would NIH Withdraw an Application? NIH knows it can be very stressful to hear your submitted grant application was withdrawn before it went to peer review. Hear from a Center for Scientific Review expert about the “why” and “how” of applications being administratively withdrawn, including how often it happens, next steps you may take, and advice to reduce the likelihood of it happening.
- Keeping Your Eye on the Prize . . . Competition. NIH uses challenges and prize competitions as a way of supporting biomedical research, giving retrospective awards for successfully solving a problem or providing a product or solution where NIH has identified a need. In this episode, learn about prize competitions’ similarities and differences from traditional grants, how to find them on Challenge.gov, financial incentives, and more.
You can listen and read full transcripts by clicking on episodes on the main Podcast page, or you can download episodes via iTunes or RSS feed. You can also subscribe to the podcasts by pasting the NIH RSS feed URL (http://grants.nih.gov/podcasts/All_About_Grants/AAG_Feed.xml) into your podcasting software.