NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (DP1 Clinical Trial Optional)

The NIH Director's Pioneer Award supports individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose bold, highly innovative, and broadly impactful research towards the ultimate goal of enhancing human health.

Applications are welcome in all research areas broadly relevant to the mission of NIH. The primary requirements are that the research be highly innovative and have the potential for unusually broad impact.

The Pioneer Award emphasizes the qualities of the investigator and the innovativeness and potential impact of the proposed research. Preliminary data and detailed experimental plans are not requested or required. To be considered pioneering, and as an aspect of innovativeness, the proposed research must reflect substantially different ideas from those being pursued in the investigator's current research program or elsewhere. The Pioneer Award is not intended to expand a current research program into the area of the proposed project. While the research direction may rely on the applicant's prior work and expertise as its foundation, it cannot be an obvious extension or scale-up of a current research enterprise. Rather, the proposed project must reflect a fundamental new insight which may involve exceptionally innovative approaches and/or radically unconventional hypotheses. Applications for projects that are straightforward extensions of ongoing research should not be submitted.

Pioneer recipients are required to commit the major portion of their research effort (more than 6 person-months or at least 51%) to activities supported by the Pioneer Award project in the first three years of the project period. Effort expended toward teaching, administrative, or clinical duties should not be included in this calculation. Recipients may reduce effort to a minimum of 4 person-months (33%) and a minimum of 3 person-months (25%) in the fourth and fifth years, respectively, to help them transition to other sources of support since Pioneer Awards cannot be renewed. Applicants with current research commitments equal to 6 person-months or more must adjust their effort on existing grants during the award period to devote the required minimum effort to the Pioneer Award project. Investigators who will not be able to meet this requirement should not submit applications. Given the scientifically risky nature of the proposed research, award recipients will be given unusual flexibility to pivot their research direction as warranted to maximize scientific impact during the project period.

Investigators who were not selected for an award in prior years may submit applications this year as long as they retain eligibility requirements described in this NOFO; however, all applications must be submitted as "new" applications regardless of any previous submissions. No reference to any prior application may be included. Any reference to a prior application may be grounds for administrative withdrawal.NIH program staff will hold a pre-application webinar to explain the program and answer questions about the application and review process. Check the NIH Calendar of Events for more information. Questions should be sent to PioneerAwards@mail.nih.gov. More information, FAQs, application guide, contacts for clinical trials, and webinar recording are on the Common Fund website.

The NIH Director's Pioneer Award is part of the High-Risk, High-Reward Research (HRHR) program funded through the NIH Common Fund, which supports cross-cutting programs that are expected to have exceptionally high impact. All Common Fund initiatives invite investigators to develop bold, innovative, and often risky approaches to address problems that may seem intractable or to seize new opportunities that offer the potential for rapid progress.

Investigators proposing NIH-defined clinical trials may refer to the Research Methods Resources website for information about developing statistical methods and study designs.