**** NOT-OD-05-021: NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program ***

NOT-OD-05-021: NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program: "NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program
Notice Number: NOT-OD-05-021
Key Dates
Release Date: January 3, 2005
Issued by
National Institutes of Health, Office of the Director (NIH/OD), (http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/)
A unique aspect of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research is the NIH Director's Pioneer Award (NDPA) Program. First announced in Fiscal Year 2004, nine awards were made in September 2004. The NDPA is designed to support individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose pioneering approaches to major contemporary challenges in biomedical research. The term pioneering is used to describe highly innovative approaches that have the potential to produce an unusually high impact, and the term award is used to mean a grant for conducting research, rather than a reward for past achievements. Biomedical research is defined broadly in this announcement as encompassing scientific investigations in the biological, behavioral, clinical, social, physical, chemical, computational, engineering, and mathematical sciences. The NDPA is meant to support individuals who intend to pursue new research directions that are not already supported by other mechanisms. The program is not intended simply to expand the funding of persons already well supported for a particular project.
This notice announces a second NPDA competition for approximately 5-10 new awards of up to $500,000 direct costs per year for five years that will be made in Fiscal Year 2005. Awardees are expected to commit the major portion (at least 51%) of their research effort to activities supported by the NDPA.
Background

The NIH's success depends on the creativity of investigator-initiated research, much of it supported by the R01 grant mechanism. Many scientists who participated in the development of the NIH Roadmap, however, expressed the view that additional means might be necessary to identify scientists with ideas that have the potential for high impact, but may be too novel, span too diverse a range of disciplines, or be at a stage too early to fare well in the traditional peer review process. A group of distinguished outside consultants proposed that NIH implement a completely new program to encourage highly innovative biomedical research with the great potential to lead to significant advances in human health. This program would complement NIH's traditional, investigator-initiated grant programs. Unlike most NIH grant mechanisms, the NDPA is designed not to support projects but rather to support highly creative and pioneering people."