Grants & You Fall 2020: COVID-19 News

In a July Open Mike post, Michael Lauer, MD, NIH deputy director for extramural research, discussed the pandemic’s effects on non-COVID research and the research workforce. To understand early effects, NIH analyzed the number of incoming new and competing renewal research grant applications received between May 1 and June 5 in 2017 – 2020.

Key findings:

• The number of applications received was 10% higher than the same time last year.
• Over the 4 years, the proportion of applications in which PIs were only women remained stable, while the proportion designating only male PIs was slightly lower.
• For all years, over 90% of applications were new.

Do not include contingency plans (i.e., outlining steps needed to recover from COVID-19-related emergency situations or institutional return-to-the-workplace plans) in NIH grant applications. If necessary, NIH staff will request and consider COVID-19 contingency plans before funding.

NIH grant reviewers will continue to be instructed to:

• disregard situations due to COVID-19 (e.g., temporary declines in productivity, availability of key personnel, proposed patient populations, animal facility shutdowns);
• assume temporary, emergency problems arising from COVID-19 will be resolved; and
• remember complications related to COVID-19 should not affect application scores.

Check out the new webpage dedicated to listing active (and expired) NIH funding opportunities specific to COVID-19.

Use this link to explore NIH COVID-19-related grant funding. Grant data are updated each weekend.

Check out NIH's COVID-19: Information for NIH Applicants and Recipients of NIH Funding webpage for new resources related to the COVID-19 pandemic. NIH is also tweeting from @NIHgrants as updates are posted.