All of NIAID’s funding opportunities set criteria to define which organizations and investigators may apply. By making a habit of checking the eligibility requirements when first considering a new opportunity, you can avoid spending time contemplating how to apply for an opportunity that isn’t open to you.
Keep in mind: NIAID makes awards to recipient organizations, not individuals. As such, most eligibility criteria pertain to the applicant organization, rather than the researcher who will conduct the research.
Classify Your Organization and Yourself
You should know whether your organization is a domestic entity, a non-domestic entity, or a non-domestic component of a U.S. organization. You should also know your organization’s type, e.g., health professional school. If you work at a for-profit organization, it’s important to know whether it qualifies as a small business concern.
Other organizational attributes that occasionally appear in funding opportunities include:
- Located within a low- or middle-income country (refer to World Bank Country and Lending Groups)
- Previous NIH grant support (e.g., thresholds defining resource-limited institutions)
You should also know your own career stage, e.g., graduate student, predoctoral candidate, postdoctoral fellow, or independent researcher. Be mindful of whether you qualify as a New or Early-Stage Investigator.
Other individual attributes that sometimes appear in funding opportunities include:
- Physician scientists, i.e., individuals with an MD, DO, DDS/DMD, DVM/VMD, MD/PhD, DNP, or nurses with research doctoral degrees who devote the majority of their time to biomedical research
- Populations noted in the Notice of NIH's Interest in Diversity
- Status as an At-Risk Investigator
Additionally, most opportunities are limited to citizens or non-citizen nationals of the United States or those lawfully admitted for permanent residence.
What to Check in a NOFO
For a given notice of funding opportunity (NOFO), check Section III. Eligibility Information for applicant requirements. You will find a list of eligible organization types, followed by designations of whether non-domestic entities and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are eligible to apply. The NOFO will then list any special eligibility criteria for the applicant organization.
Most research project grant NOFOs encourage any individual with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the proposed research to work with their organization to develop an application for support. Typically, this implies a level of position at which the institution allows employees to apply, e.g., assistant professor or higher. For fellowship and career development NOFOs, requirements for past or ongoing educational attainment levels are common.
Occasionally, NIAID uses limited competitions to invite applications from a targeted group of organizations, i.e., those already participating within a particular collaborative network. For those NOFOs, the phrase “Limited Competition” will be part of the title.
What to Check in a NOSI
Every notice of special interest (NOSI) refers to one or more NOFOs through which applicants may apply.
While a NOSI may stipulate eligibility criteria within its Purpose section, most NOSIs defer to the instructions listed in the identified NOFOs. Thus, a NOSI’s eligibility criteria is often determined by the requirements listed in the NOFO through which you choose to apply.
For Supplements, Projects Have Eligibility Requirements
NIH uses research and administrative supplements to provide supplemental funding to ongoing research projects.
NOFOs and NOSIs for supplements will also list eligibility requirements based on the ongoing research project. Most common is a restriction that the active grant award cannot be in its first or final year of the project period. A NOFO or NOSI may also limit which ongoing awards are eligible for a supplement based on activity code; refer to NOT-OD-23-031 for a recent example.
Alternatives When Not Eligible
Should you find an appealing NOFO for which you are ineligible, it’s unlikely that circumstances will change such that you will become eligible. However, two other paths to funding exist that you could pursue instead.
First, you could submit an investigator-initiated application on the same research topic through a parent announcement. For example, if you were not eligible for NIH Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) Translational Exploratory/Developmental Research Projects (R21, Clinical Trial Not Allowed), you could still submit an application on countermeasures to chemical threats through NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21, Clinical Trial Not Allowed).
Second, you could seek out a collaborator who is eligible to apply for the opportunity and arrange to cooperate through a Subaward relationship.
If neither of those options are feasible, we recommend you reach out to the scientific contact listed in Section VII. Agency Contacts to discuss other routes to research support.
For more on this topic, read Determine Eligibility for NIAID Grants, which includes guidance tailored for New Investigators and International Applications.