Early- and Mid-Career Faculty Encouraged to Contact NIH to Express Interest in Next Generation Research Initiative

To: Boston University Faculty
From: Diane Baldwin, Associate Vice President for Sponsored Programs
Date: October 16, 2017

Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the launch of the Next Generation Researchers Initiative (NGRI), which will allocate approximately $210 million in fiscal year 2017 and an additional $210 million each year for four years to support additional meritorious early-stage and mid-career investigators. This amount will ramp up over five years to reach approximately $1.1 billion per year.  On August 31, NIH released a policy supporting the NGRI that defines the categories of researchers eligible for the funding pool.

  • Early Stage Investigator (ESI): An investigator who has completed a terminal research degree or end of post-graduate clinical training, whichever date is later, within the past 10 years and has not been awarded an R01-equivalent as the principal investigator. A list of NIH grants that an investigator can hold and still be considered an ESI can be found at https://grants.nih.gov/policy/early-investigators/list-smaller-grants.htm.
  • Early Established Investigator (EEI): an investigator who is within 10 years of receiving their NIH R01 equivalent research award as an ESI. Their application will be prioritized if they are at risk of losing all NIH support or are supported by only one award.

The Office of the Vice President and Associate Provost for Research encourages faculty who fall into these categories to take advantage of this new initiative.  We recommend connecting with your program officers to discuss resubmitting proposals that were not funded and discussing new ideas that would be potentially fundable. Each NIH institute and center is setting the priorities and determining funding for investigators within its portfolio, hence, it is important to engage program officers.

To learn more about this initiative, please visit https://grants.nih.gov/ngri.htm. The new policy, meanwhile, can be viewed at https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-17-101.html, and a blog post from NIH Deputy Director of Extramural Research Mike Lauer can be found here: https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2017/08/31/nihs-next-generation-researchers-policy-now-posted/.

Please feel free to contact my office for assistance.

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