Term | Conceptual Definition |
| Active Grant | A grant meeting the following criteria:
1. Today's date is between the budget start and end dates.
2. The grant has an eRA System (IMPAC II) application status code of "Awarded. Non-fellowships only." or "Awarded. Fellowships only."
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| Activity Code | A three-digit code assigned by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify funding mechanisms (e.g. F32, K12, P01, R01, T32, etc.). General categories include:
F -- fellowships
K -- career development awards
N -- research contracts
P -- program project and research center grants
R -- research project grants
S -- research-related programs
T -- training grants
U -- cooperative agreements
Y -- interagency agreements
For specific activity codes and definitions, go to IMPAC Activity Codes, Organization Codes, and Definitions Used in Extramural Programs (Tables 2-4). Also see the Types of Grant Programs page to search activity codes and for more information on selected grant programs.
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| Administrative IC | The NIH Institute or Center to which the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) routes NIH grant applications for a funding decision. An I/C may request to change this assignment if the application is more suited to another I/C. Also referred to as primary assignment. For awards, also referred to as the Awarding Office.
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| Administrative Supplement | Monies added to a grant without peer review to pay for items within the scope of an award but unforeseen when a grant application was submitted.
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| Award | The provision of funds by NIH, based on an approved application and budget or progress report, to an organizational entity or an individual to carry out a project or activity.
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| Awarding IC | The IC(s) contributing funds to a grant award.
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| Bilateral agreement | A general science agreement between the U.S. and a foreign country. Grant applications from institutions in these countries that have been recommended for approval by the scientific review group are given special funding consideration by Council.
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| Biomedical Research and Development Price Index. | Measures real annual changes in the prices of items and services required for research and development (R&D) activities.
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| Biomedical research support grants | Grants to strengthen, balance, and stabilize supported biomedical and behavioral research programs through flexible funds that permit institutions to respond quickly and effectively to emerging needs and opportunities; to enhance creativity and innovation, to support pilot studies, and to improve research resources.
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| Biotechnology Research centers | A research center funding mechanism. Grants to support regional and national access to the sophisticated research instrumentation and technology needed to solve medical and clinical research problems that are beyond the purview of conventional means. Investigators on NIH grants share these expensive resources, which results in considerable savings to the government.
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| Bridge Awards | Provides one year of funding so investigators can continue research while reapplying for an R01 grant or enables new investigators to gather preliminary data to improve their applications. Investigators do not apply for Bridge Awards but are selected from R01 grants at the pay-line margin. A Bridge Award is made as an R21 with one year of funding, which the PI can choose to spend over a two-year period. This enables the PI to submit an amended R01 application for the next receipt date while receiving interim (bridge) funding under the R21 mechanism.
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| Budget authority | Legal authority to spend monies for programs, projects, or activities. Budget authority may be classified by the period (one-year, multiyear, no-year), the timing of congressional action (current or permanent), or manner of determining the amount available (definite or indefinite).
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| Budget Period | The intervals of time (usually 12 months each) into which a project period is divided for budgetary and funding purposes.
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| Buildings and Facilities | Funds appropriated to pay the cost of design, development, construction, repair, and improvement of capital facilities and related infrastructure.
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| Cancer education grant | Grant mechanism to support: innovative educational programs intended to motivate biomedical and other health science students to pursue cancer related careers; short courses to update cancer research scientists in new scientific methods, technologies and findings; training of cancer care clinicians and community health care providers in evidence-based cancer prevention and control approaches; development of effective innovative education (dissemination) approaches to translate knowledge gained from science (discovery) into public health and community applications (delivery).
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| Cancer education grants | Grants to fund innovative cancer education programs that ultimately will contribute to decreasing cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality and to improving the quality of life of cancer patients. As long as the proposed cancer education programs address a need not adequately fulfilled by other grant mechanisms available at the National Institutes of Health and they are focused on areas of particular interest to the National Cancer Institute, the educational tools can be diverse. The proposed programs can include short courses and the development of curricula in academic institutions; the organization of national seminars, and workshops; the education of community health care professionals, biomedical and clinical investigators, and members of the lay community; to the sponsorship of short-term research experiences; and the development of web-based curriculum, communication, and educational tools. |
| Career Development Award | Award supporting Ph.D.s and clinicians who wish to develop a career in biomedical research. |
| Clinical research | Patient-oriented research, including epidemiologic and behavioral studies, outcomes research, and health services research. Patient-oriented research is research conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin such as tissues, specimens, and cognitive phenomena) in which a researcher directly interacts with human subjects. It includes research on mechanisms of human disease, therapeutic interventions, clinical trials, and development of new technologies, but does not include in vitro studies using human tissues not linked to a living individual. Studies falling under 45 CFR 46.101(a) (4) are not considered clinical research for purposes of this definition.
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| Clinical research center | A research center funding mechanism. Grants to support clinical research in a specialized environment where each center is a discrete unit of research beds separated from the general care ward with specialized equipment and expert personnel necessary to provide a controlled environment and assist in the rapid transfer of basic research results to patient care.
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| Clinical trial
| "A biomedical or behavioral research study of human subjects designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions (drugs, treatments, devices, or new ways of using known drugs, treatments, or devices). Clinical trials are used to determine whether new biomedical or behavioral interventions are safe, efficacious, and effective. Clinical trials of an experimental drug, treatment, device, or intervention may proceed through four phases:
Phase I. Testing in a small group of people (e.g. 20-80) to determine efficacy and evaluate safety (e.g., determine a safe dosage range and identify side effects).
Phase II. Study in a larger group of people (several hundred) to determine efficacy and further evaluate safety.
Phase III. Study to determine efficacy in large groups of people (from several hundred to several thousand) by comparing the intervention to other standard or experimental interventions, to monitor adverse effects, and to collect information to allow safe use.
Phase IV. Studies done after the intervention has been marketed. These studies are designed to monitor the effectiveness of the approved intervention in the general population and to collect information about any adverse effects associated with widespread use."
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| Co-Funding | Funding arrangement through which two or more institutes or centers pay for a grant.
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| Co-Investigator | An individual involved with the PI in the scientific development or execution of a project. The co-investigator (collaborator) may be employed by, or be affiliated with, the applicant/grantee organization or another organization participating in the project under a consortium agreement. A co-investigator typically devotes a specified percentage of time to the project and is considered "key personnel." The designation of a co-investigator, if applicable, does not affect the PI’s roles and responsibilities as specified in the NIH Grants Policy Statement (NIH GPS).
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| Commitment | Funds used for noncompeting (type 5 or ongoing awards), typically 70-80 percent of the dollars spent for research project grants.
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| Comparative medicine center | A research center funding mechanism. Grants to support the development of mammalian and non-mammalian models for research, or to make animal or biological materials resources available to all qualified investigators. |
| Competing Application/Award | Either new or re-competing applications that must undergo initial peer review. If awarded, competing applications become competing awards.
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| Competing Continuation | An application requiring competitive peer review and Institute/Center action to continue beyond the current competitive segment (also known as a Renewal or Type 2).
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| Competing Supplement | Formerly used NIH term replaced by the term revision.
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| Competitive segment | PeThe initial project period recommended for support (in general, up to 5 years) or each extension of a project period resulting from a competing continuation award.
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| Constant Dollars | Dollar amounts adjusted for inflation, based on buying power in a selected base year. The BRDPI is used to determine constant dollars from current dollars.
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| Continuation | Financial or direct assistance for a second or subsequent budget period. |
| Contract (R&D) | An award instrument establishing a binding legal procurement relationship between NIH and a recipient obligating the latter to furnish a product or service defined in detail by NIH and binding the Institute to pay for it. Go to Office of Acquisition Management and Policy (OAMP) Web site for information on contracts and contract opportunities.
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| Cooperative Agreement | A support mechanism used when there will be substantial Federal scientific or programmatic involvment. Substantial involvement means that after award, scientific or program staff will assist, guide, coordinate, or participate in project activities. |
| Cooperative clinical research grants | Grant awarded to multiple institutions where investigators are asked to follow common research protocols, because there are insufficient numbers of subjects available at a single institution to conduct a major clinical trial. NIH staff is substantially involved in the management of these awards.
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| Cooperative Research and Development Agreement | Any agreement between one or more NIH laboratories and one or more non-Federal parties under which the PHS, through its laboratories, provides personnel, services, facilities, equipment, or other resources with or without reimbursement (but not funds to non-Federal parties) and the non-Federal parties provide funds, personnel, services, facilities, equipment, or other resources toward the conduct of specified research or development efforts which are consistent with the missions of the laboratory.
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| Costs, Direct | Costs that can be specifically identified with a particular project or activity. |
| Costs, Direct, Awarded | Total NIH direct cost dollars awarded to a grant. |
| Costs, Direct, Requested | Principal Investigators request a funding level in their application for each year. These dollars are only direct costs and do not include the indirect cost associated with the organization where the research will be conducted. |
| Costs, Indirect | Costs that are incurred by a grantee for common or joint objectives and cannot be identified specifically with a particular project or program. |
| Costs, Indirect, Awarded
| Total NIH indirect cost dollars awarded to a grant.
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| Costs, Total, Awarded
| Total NIH dollars awarded to a grant.
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| Council Round
| At the NIH, there are at least three, and sometimes four, council rounds each fiscal year: October, January, May, and sometimes August. Application receipt dates, initial review dates, and council review dates all fall within one of these council rounds. Incoming grant applications all are assigned to a council round.
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| Count (application/award/grant)
| Unless noted, the total number of applications/grants shown, excluding administrative supplements.
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| Count, excluding administrative supplements. | See Count |
| Current dollars | Actual dollars awarded without adjustment for inflation.
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| Department | Codes used to eliminate variations in the department names within an institution. Department codes are only used for domestic institutions of higher education.
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| Department Category | The department combining name for this is standardized and the official NIH name for the organization.
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| Disaggregated Application
| An application with a portion (or subproject) funded as a separate grant.
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| Dual assignment | Applications simultaneously assigned to two or more Institutes or Centers. The primary Institute has complete responsibility for administering and funding the application; a secondary IC assumes this responsibility only if the primary is unable or unwilling to support it.
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| Employer Identification Number
| Identification of a business to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service; also known as a Federal tax identification number. Entered on the SF 424 form of a grant application.
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| Expanded Authorities
| Operating authorities provided to grantees that waive the requirement for NIH prior approval for specified actions. Go to Administrative Requirements—Changes in Project and Budget—Expanded Authorities.
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