High-End Instrumentation (HEI) Grant Program (S10 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PAR-24-264

This funding opportunity is to continue the High-End Instrumentation (HEI) Grant Program administered by ORIP. The objective of the Program is to make available to institutions high-end research instruments that can only be justified on a shared-use basis and that are needed for NIH-supported projects in basic, translational, and clinical biomedical or biobehavioral research. The HEI program provides funds to purchase or upgrade a single item of expensive, leading-edge, specialized, commercially available instrument or an integrated instrumentation system. An integrated instrumentation system is one in which the components, when used in conjunction with one another, perform a function that no single component can provide. The components must be dedicated to the system and not used independently.

Types of supported instruments include, but are not limited to: MRI imagers, PET/CT imagers, cyclotrons, photoacoustic imagers, mass spectrometers, NMR spectrometers, electron microscopes, cryo-electron microscopes, X-ray diffractometers, and super-resolution microscopes. Applications for standalone computer systems (supercomputers, computer clusters and data storage systems) will only be considered if the system is solely dedicated to biomedical research.

In particular, the HEI program enables the introduction of advanced leading-edge technologies providing new capabilities to biomedical research. In such cases, a risk-return trade-off is expected and allowed. Due to the novelty of the technologies and the uniqueness of their implementation, specialized and technologically savvy groups of investigators will be needed to lead the adoption of such advanced instruments for biomedical research and to develop innovative biomedical applications. Therefore, if such a novel instrument is requested, the applicant should demonstrate special technical expertise, merging multiple fields of science and technology, such as biology, physics, and bioinformatics. For integrated systems, the applicant must provide a detailed description about how the system will be put together and about the technical expertise of the individual(s) who will be responsible for assembling the system. The applicant must also provide a detailed description of training for the investigators listed in the application about the use of the novel technology in advancing their research. Accordingly, the HEI program requires that any unique instrument or an integrated system must be developed by reliable commercial vendors and guaranteed by the manufacturer’s one-year warranty.

All instruments and integrated systems must be dedicated to biomedical research only.

In rare special circumstances when an institution cannot justify sole use of the high-end instrument for NIH-supported and other biomedical research, the institution may request a Special Use Instrument (SUI). Eligibility requirements for SUI requests are described in Section III.3.

Foreign-made instruments are allowed.

The HEI Program will not support requests for:

• An instrument with a base cost of less than $750,001.
• Multiple instruments bundled together.
• Purely instructional equipment other than under the conditions of SUI see Section III.3.
• Instruments that are not commercially available and do not have a manufacturer warranty.
• Institutional administrative management systems or clinical management systems.
• Instruments to be used for clinical (billable) care, other than under the conditions of SUI see Section III.3.
• Software, unless it is integrated in the operation of the instrument and/or necessary for the generation of high-quality output experimental data from the instrument.
• Additional stand-alone workstations for data processing, licenses, and duplicate software items.
• General purpose equipment (such as standard machine shop equipment), equipment to furnish a research facility (such as autoclaves, hoods, equipment to upgrade animal facilities), and equipment for routine sustaining infrastructure (such as standard computer networks or general-purpose data storage systems).
• Disposable devices, office furniture, and supplies.
• Alteration or renovation of space to house the instruments.

Applications will be accepted that request a single, commercially available instrument or an integrated instrumentation system. The minimum award is $750,001. There is no upper limit on the cost of the instrument, but the maximum award is $2,000,000. Since the cost of various instruments will vary, it is anticipated that the amount of the award will also vary. S10 awards do not allow indirect costs.

Not Required

June 02, 2025

Monika Aggarwal, Ph.D.
Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP)
Telephone: 301-435-0783
Email: monika.aggarwal@nih.gov