NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award for Individual and Group Science (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
NIH Common Fund (NIH-CF) · NIH Institute/Center · RFA-RM-27-003
Source: Grants.gov · View original posting ↗
- AwardWhat a single award can be worth — the funder's published per-award amount or floor–ceiling range.
- $8M total
- DeadlineFinal application due date.
- Sep 3, 2026
- Letter of intentDue date for the letter of intent (a short pre-application some funders require or request before the full proposal).
- —
- MechanismNIH activity code — the grant type (R01 research project, R21 exploratory, K series career development, F series fellowship, …).
- R01
- DurationMaximum project period for a single award.
- —
- Expected awardsHow many awards the funder anticipates making under this opportunity.
- 7
- Funding cycleHow often the program accepts applications (annual, multiple cycles per year, rolling, or one-time).
- One-time
- Open dateWhen applications open (or opened).
- Jun 29, 2026
- Total fundingThe overall pool the funder expects to commit across ALL awards under this opportunity — not what one project receives.
- $8M total
- Clinical trialWhether proposed projects must, may, or must not include a clinical trial.
- Optional / allowed
Funding context
Based on FY2024 NIH (all institutes) R01 applications (5,385 of 33,139 applications awarded).
Institute-specific data wasn’t available — showing the NIH-wide rate for this mechanism.
Payline: NIH discontinued percentile paylines for 2026 under its Unified Funding Strategy ↗ — scores are now weighed in context rather than against a fixed cutoff.
NIH-wide R01, all institutes.
Aggregate historical data by institute, mechanism, and fiscal year — context for planning, not a prediction for this opportunity. Source ↗
Description
The NIH Director"s Transformative Research Award supports individual scientists or groups of scientists proposing bold, groundbreaking, exceptionally innovative, original, and/or unconventional research with the potential to create new scientific paradigms, establish entirely new and improved clinical approaches, or develop transformative technologies. Applications in any area within the biomedical sciences are welcome; topics may involve basic, translational, or clinical research. No preliminary data are required. Projects must clearly demonstrate, based on the strength of the logic, a compelling potential to produce a major impact in a broad area of relevance to the NIH. The NIH Director"s Transformative Research Award is a component of the High-Risk, High-Reward Research (HRHR) program of the NIH Common Fund.