Five Steps to Finding NIAID's High-Priority Areas

Follow the steps below.

1. After each Council meeting, review Council-approved concepts.

Concepts represent the very earliest planning stage of a research initiative: a program announcement (PA), request for applications (RFA), or solicitation. Published initiatives announce NIH funding opportunities in high-priority areas of science.

Even at this pre-initiative stage, concepts can be useful to you. Learn how to use a high-priority topic as the basis of an investigator-initiated application at Concepts May Turn Into Initiatives and Application Approach: What Are Your Choices?

To find concepts by division, go to the Concepts: Potential Opportunities page. We list Council dates at National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council.

2. Check our initiative list to see advertised areas in which we need applications.

Consider applying for an initiative if the topic matches your area of expertise. First read the Application Approach: What Are Your Choices? section of NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

For most PAs, NIAID will fund grants in the topic, including some that score above the payline. All RFAs and solicitations have their own funding set-asides, and some PAs do as well. Find a list on NIH Funding Opportunities Relevant to NIAID and other information on our Opportunities and Announcements portal.

3. Call an NIAID program officer for more information and advice about opportunities.

Contact an NIAID program officer to discuss what other areas the Institute has defined as high priority. You could use one of these topics as the basis of an investigator-initiated application or possibly to apply through an initiative.

Ask whether the Institute has other unpublished areas in which it would like to receive investigator-initiated applications that match your areas of expertise.

You can also call the program officer listed in the announcement to get more information about an initiative. Ask if you qualify for all the requirements.

Ask how well the initiative is suited to your research strengths and objectives, and discuss the level of competition you can expect. Go to Contact Staff for Help to find a program officer.

4. Assess what is already funded to unearth gaps in your field.

Ferret out the gaps in your field, paying particular attention to areas the Institute considers to be high priority. Both the Community of Science and NIH's Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool Expenditures and Results (RePORTER) have search engines that will find funded research projects.

5. Get help identifying a topic.

Find more information about choosing a topic for your grant's project at Strategy for Picking a Project .

After you have chosen a topic, read our NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal and other All About Grants tutorials for grant writing help.