Issue: ORN-2026-17
NJIT Research Newsletter includes recent awards, and announcements of research related seminars, webinars, national and federal research news related to research funding, and Grant Opportunity Alerts (with links to sections). The Newsletter is posted on the NJIT Research Website https://research.njit.edu/funding-opportunities.
Special Announcements
NIH Point of Care Research Network (POCTRN) Centers
Innovation Awards Up to $150,000
The POCTRN+ network has announced six new innovation award opportunities designed to accelerate breakthrough advancements in health technology. Now seeking applications from academic and industry innovators developing point-of-care solutions across chronic disease, infectious disease, and disease prevention. Each center offers distinct funding opportunities, with awards of up to $150,000, along with 12 months of in-kind support services for selected projects.
- CAPCaT: Supporting point-of-care technologies for heart, lung, blood, or sleep disorders, with additional interest in projects that incorporate complementary and integrative health approaches
- PORTENT: Supporting the development of Point-of-Care Technologies in Nutrition, Infection, and Cancer for Global Health
- CITEC: Supporting Point-of-Care Tools to Improve Detection of Pre-Cancer and Early Cancer
- ACME POCT: Supporting microsystems-based Point-of-Care Technologies
- CIDID: Supporting improvements to rapid simple Point-Of-Care tests For Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)
- C-THAN: Point-of-Care Technologies for HIV/AIDS, Co-morbidities, and Emerging Infectious Disease in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
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NIH Announces System Enforcement of Common Forms and End of Leniency Period
On April 21, 2026, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released Notice NOT-OD-26-079, announcing the end of the agency’s leniency period regarding use of the Common Forms for Biographical Sketch, Current and Pending (Other) Support, and NIH Biographical Sketch Supplement.
Beginning May 8, 2026, all NIH applications and related submissions, including Just-in-Time (JIT), progress reports, and prior approval requests, must use the new Common Forms via SciENcv. The previously announced “leniency period” will end on May 7, 2026, after which non-compliant submissions will not be accepted.
The Notice also includes the announcement that, effective April 22, 2026, NIH has restored the Research Security Training (RST) certification language to the Common Forms, requiring that senior/key personnel certify that they have completed RST that meets the requirements specified in Item 2 of Important Notice No. 149 within 12 months prior to proposal submission.
NIH notes that if senior/key personnel already certified their Common Forms, prior to the addition of this text on April 22, 2026, for applications due on or after May 25, 2026:
- For applications that have yet been submitted, senior/key personnel should regenerate their Common Form PDFs prior to submission.
- For applications that been submitted, senior/key personnel do not need to resubmit with updated Common Forms, as NIH staff will collect these updated documents at JIT for applications selected for potential funding.
NIH will not hold senior/key personnel accountable for the RST-related portion of the certification statement for applications that include Common Forms for due dates on or before May 24, 2026.
The Notice also includes:
- The announcement that SciENcv has been updated to allow users to enter zero person months effort for Proposals/Active Projects and In-Kind Contributions on the Current and Pending (Other) Support Form
- A reminder for senior/key personnel to link their ORCID to their SciENcv and eRA Commons accounts
- A reminder that the RPPR, JIT, and Prior Approval (PA) eRA modules have been updated to allow Common Form attachments at an individual person-level, so documents for multiple individuals no longer have to be compiled and flattened as a single PDF.
Grant Opportunity Alerts
NSF: Engineering Biological and Biomedical Systems; Electronic, Photonic, Magnetic, and Quantum Devices (EPMQD); Energy, Power, Control, and Learning (EPCL); Circuits and Systems for Communications and Sensing (CSCS)
NIH: Forecast: NIH Specialized Center Grant (Parent P50)
Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: DoW Alzheimer’s Transforming Diagnosis Award; Emerging Weapons and Munitions Systems and Soldier Lethality Related Technologies
Department of Energy: Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator Notice of Funding Opportunity
NASA: ROSES25: A.11 Early Career Investigator Program in Earth Science; ROSES25: F.5 Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology; A.3 NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission Data, Applications, Research, and Technology Team
Recent Research Grant and Contract Awards
In the News
OpenAI makes frontier model available to critical cyber defenders: OpenAI is beginning to make its cybersecurity-focused artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.5-Cyber, available to the federal government and its “critical cyber defenders.” First confirmed to CNN, the availability of OpenAI’s frontier cybersecurity model follows the announcement of Anthropic’s newly released Mythos AI, a powerful frontier model distributed to select companies for testing via Anthropic’s Project Glasswing. Alongside GPT-5.5-Cyber release, OpenAI published a new Cybersecurity Action Plan to help leverage AI as an asset in national defense cybersecurity operations, including pillars for democratizing access to cyber-capable AI models, coordinating responses between government and industry, and ensuring visibility and control of AI models during and after deployment. “AI is reshaping cybersecurity,” OpenAI told Nextgov/FCW in a statement. “The same capabilities that help defenders are also being used by malicious actors. Some believe the answer is to tightly restrict advanced cyber capabilities to a very small group of approved partners. We believe the better path is responsible, trusted access for defenders so they can move faster than adversaries can adapt.” More information is posted on the NextGov website.
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Tech bills of the week: Creating data privacy standards; Securing critical infrastructure from drones; and more: A group of Republican lawmakers announced the introduction of two new data privacy bills on April 22: the SECURE Data Act and the GUARD Financial Data Act. Top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Financial Services Committee — led by Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and French Hill, R-Ark., respectively — teamed up to create and introduce the proposals. Both measures focus on the same six pillars: data minimization, data access rights, data deletion rights, sensitive data, national standards and avoiding dual regulation. The majority of these pillars give consumers control over how their data is collected and shared between institutions. It also defines sensitive data and mandates that controllers of that data take on more responsibility to inform consumers as to why and how their data is being collected and provide opt-out options.
Protecting critical infrastructure from drones
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced legislation on Thursday that would allow critical infrastructure operators to better guard against drone incursions, including enabling them to use kinetic solutions to bring down rogue aerial systems.
Federal action against biosecurity threats
Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Ted Budd, R-N.C., both on the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced legislation on Tuesday to protect against biological threats at a national security level.
The Engineering Biology Readiness Act comes as advanced generative artificial intelligence is projected to have a major impact on scientific research and discovery. It seeks to renew requirements for a National Biodefense Strategy and creates an interagency coordination effort to offer recommendations to mitigate the risks associated with frontier biological research. More information is posted on the NextGov website.
Webinars and Events
Research Grant Opportunities:
National Science Foundation
National Institutes of Health
Department of Defense
Department of Energy
NASA
Proposal Submission and Streamlyne Information
The NJIT Proposal Submission Guidelines and Policy provides the expected institutional timeline for proposal submission. Streamlyne User Manuals are posted on https://research.njit.edu/streamlyne. For contact information on proposal submission, pre-award services and post-award grant management, please visit research website https://research.njit.edu/researchers and https://research.njit.edu/contact.