The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today that it is awarding $348 million to encourage investigators to explore bold ideas that have the potential to catapult fields forward and speed the translation of research into improved health.
The full complement of awards is granted under three innovative research programs supported by the NIH Common Fund's Roadmap for Medical Research: the NIH Director's Transformative R01 (T-R01) Awards, Pioneer Awards, and New Innovator Awards. The Common Fund, enacted into law by Congress through the 2006 NIH Reform Act, supports cross-cutting, trans-NIH programs with a particular emphasis on innovation and risk taking. A portion of these New Innovator Awards is also supported by funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
"The appeal of the Pioneer, New Innovator, and now the T-R01 programs, is that investigators are encouraged to challenge the status quo with innovative ideas, while being given the necessary resources to test them," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "The fact that we continue to receive such strong proposals for funding through the programs reflects the wealth of creative ideas in science today."
Accelerating the current pace of discovery through the support of highly innovative research is an ongoing effort at the NIH, but the NIH Director's T-R01 Program is new this year. Named for the standard investigator-initiated research project that the NIH supports, the R01, the T-R01s provide a new opportunity for scientists that is unmatched by any other NIH program. Since no budget cap is imposed and preliminary results are not required, scientists are free to propose new, bold ideas that may require significant resources to pursue. They are also given the flexibility to work in large, complex teams if the complexity of the research problem demands it.
This year, the NIH is granting 115 NIH Director's High-Risk Research Awards: 42 T-R01 Awards, 18 Pioneer Awards, and 55 New Innovator Awards for early-stage investigators.
The NIH expects to make competing awards of $30 million to T-R01 awardees, $13.5 million to Pioneer awardees, and approximately $131 million to New Innovators in Fiscal Year 2009. The total funding provided to this competing cohort over a five-year period is estimated to be $348 million. The New Innovator total includes $23 million in funds through the Recovery Act.
This year's awards make the largest number of Pioneer and New Innovator awards in the programs' history. Investigators funded via the 2004 cohort, the first year of the Pioneer Awards, have completed their projects. Details on the progress made by these awardees are available at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer/Profiles04/index.aspx
The 2009 recipients' names and institutions are listed below.
More information on the Transformative R01 Award is at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01 . For descriptions of the 2009 recipients' research plans, see http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01/Recipients09.asp
Information on the Pioneer Award is at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer , including information on this year's awardees http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/pioneer/Recipients09.aspx and the two-day NIH Director's Pioneer Award Symposium which begins on Thursday, September 24, 2009, and is free and open to the public.
More information on the New Innovator Award is at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/newinnovator . For descriptions of the 2009 recipients' research plans, see http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/newinnovator/Recipients09.asp .
The NIH Common Fund encourages collaboration and supports a series of exceptionally high impact, trans-NIH programs known collectively as the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The NIH Director's Transformative R01, Pioneer, and New Innovator Award programs are part of the NIH Roadmap. They are funded through the Common Fund and managed by the NIH Office of the Director and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, respectively. The Roadmap is a series of initiatives designed to pursue major opportunities and gaps in biomedical research that no single NIH institute could tackle alone, but that the agency as a whole can address to make the biggest impact possible on the progress of medical research. Additional information about the NIH Roadmap can be found at www.nihroadmap.nih.gov .
The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/ .
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov .
Some activities described in this release are being funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). More information about NIH's ARRA grant funding opportunities can be found at http://grants.nih.gov/recovery/ . To track the progress of HHS activities funded through the ARRA, visit www.hhs.gov/recovery . To track all federal funds provided through the ARRA, visit www.recovery.gov .
2009 NIH Director's Transformative R01 Award Recipients
2009 NIH Director's Pioneer Award Recipients
2009 NIH Director's New Innovator Award Recipients