With $21 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), we are pleased that NIH is able to facilitate educational opportunities for students and science educators in extramural laboratories holding active NIH grants. These administrative supplements providing summer research experiences for students and science educators are now available on an expedited basis to those with active NIH research grants.

New funding opportunities available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 have been published and posted at http://grants.nih.gov/recovery. These include the NIH-wide initiative for research and research infrastructure support entitled the “Grand Opportunities,” a Biomedical Core Centers enhancement opportunity, and four initiatives through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for research on the heterogeneity of Autism Spectrum Disorders.

NIH will continue to receive applications through Grants.gov for all funding opportunities offered through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Some concerns have been noted regarding the ability of Grants.gov to handle the additional demand for grant information and application submission related to ARRA. NIH is working closely with Grants.gov and other federal entities to take all possible steps to meet the needs of the biomedical research community. We will moniter the systems for issues and make adjustments as necessary.

Should you experience problems with Grants.gov that threaten the timely submission of your application, please take the following steps to document your difficulties.

The NIH recently unveiled the NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research (RFA-OD-09-003 ), one of several funding opportunities available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The Challenge Grants program invites applications from domestic institutions and organizations proposing novel research in areas that address specific knowledge gaps, scientific opportunities, new technologies, data generation, or research methods that would benefit from an influx of funds to quickly advance the area in significant ways. The program is designed to support research in the "Challenge area" topics identified by NIH Institutes and Centers.

Help reviewers find exactly what they are looking for in your research plan by breaking your proposal down according to the primary review criteria: significance, investigator(s), innovation, approach, and environment. Begin each section with clear, descriptive headers that effectively frame your research plan.