Introduction to A Grant Application Process for the United States of America National Institutes of Health (NIH)
By Albert Ngo, PhD
The NIH’s mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. There are twenty-seven different institutes and centers (ICs) of which twenty-four offer funding opportunities and award grants. The institutes and the centers are the following: the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Eye Institute (NEI), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), National Institute on Aging (NIA),National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS),National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR),National Library of Medicine (NLM), Center for Information Technology (CIT), Center for Scientific Review (CSR), Fogarty International Center (FIC), National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), and the NIH Clinical Center (CC). Funding is made available through NIH institutes and centers. Before applying for a grant, search an IC that may be suitable for your research and grant application to ensure that your proposal fits within the mission of the IC. A literature search should also prevent submitting a proposal where the work has already been conducted or the result of the driving hypothesis is already known to maximize your chance to secure a successfully funded NIH grant.