NINDS Paylines

Interim Fiscal Year 2024 Payline Information

As discussed at the September 2023 NANDS Council meeting (starting at ~1:13:32), due to appropriations uncertainty NINDS will be implementing a conservative funding strategy for the start of Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24). Applications submitted for due dates after January 1, 2023 will be subject to the following interim FY2024 policy.

• Percentiled applications will be considered according to the payline table listed below.
• Non-percentiled applications are also being selected conservatively. This historic averages table shows recent funding ranges but may not reflect FY24 funding decisions.
• Please check back at this site for updates as additional FY24 budget information becomes available.

	Standard	Early Stage Investigator (ESI)	Applications subject to SCR*
R03	11%	N/A	5%
R15	11%	N/A	5%
R21	11%	N/A	5%
R01	11%	22%	5%

If your application was submitted for due dates before January 2023, it falls completely within FY23 and the paylines below apply.

 

Congressional Funding Status

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including NIH, is operating under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Public Law 117-328), signed by President Biden on December 29, 2022. This law continues government operations through September 30, 2023.

Competing Award Administrative Reductions and Funding Policies

• Non-Modular R01s will receive a 17.5% administrative cut; modular R01s and most other funding mechanisms are generally awarded with no administrative reduction to the IRG-approved funding level.
• Salaries, stipends, and Training Funds are limited to the levels published by the NIH. We will reduce budgets when these caps are exceeded.  For additional information, see our salary cap, stipends, and training funds page.
• No inflationary increases are provided in calculating future year commitments. For more details about this and related funding policies, see our Funding Policies page.

Noncompeting Award Funding Policies

• When an application is funded, NIH agrees to provide funds over several years (for example, the typical NINDS R01 award is funded for five years).  Therefore, investigators request payment for the next budget period (usually, every year), but these requests do not compete with other applications. NINDS will pay FY23 non-competing continuation awards at their full committed level as shown in the Notice of Award and will restore any cuts made in non-competing awards paid earlier in this fiscal year.

Understanding Your Funding Likelihood 

The tables below provide guidelines to applicants trying to assess their likelihood of funding.  There are a few important points of note that applicants must keep in mind when reviewing this information:

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Key Points

• Funding isn’t official until a Notice of Award (NoA) is issued.
• NINDS Program Staff are not able to say anything more definitive until after the NINDS Advisory Council meets and the NoA has been released.
• You can find more details on how to assess funding likelihood and when that determination is likely to be made by visiting the NINDS Post Review: Next Steps page.

 

Fiscal Year 2023 Applications with a Percentile Score 

This table applies to applications receiving a percentiled score. The standard payline will be applicable for most applications, but note important exceptions for Early Stage Investigators (ESI), and applications subject to Special Council Review (SCR*), and applications on Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) (see further below). While a score within the paylines shown in the table suggests a high likelihood of funding, it is not a guarantee; there are rare circumstances where an application within the payline is not funded. 

*Applicants with greater than $2 million in total costs of NIH funding (including the pending application) per year at the time of the Council meeting are subject to Special Council Review (SCR). Note that because AD/ADRD is responsive to a Congressional mandate, AD/ADRD applications are exempt from the NINDS SCR policy. 

 

Fiscal Year 2023 AD/ADRD Paylines and Funding Principles

 

Applications with a Percentile Score

For percentiled AD/ADRD applications submitted to the Parent R01, R03, and R15 funding opportunities, NINDS follows the same AD/ADRD paylines as NIA.

Parent Announcement Applications	Standard	New Investigator	Early Stage Investigator (ESI)
R03	25%	N/A	N/A
R15	25%	N/A	N/A
R21	25%	N/A	N/A
R01	25%	28%	30%

For percentiled AD/ADRD applications not submitted to a parent announcement, contact Kiara Bates for further guidance.

 

Non-percentiled AD/ADRD applications

For AD/ADRD applications responding to other announcements, including specific NINDS ADRD funding opportunities, NINDS sets a payline for each based on impact score as well as reviewer comments and funds available. NINDS and NIA work together to ensure similar paylines at the two institutes for AD/ADRD. For questions about NINDS AD/ADRD pay lines and programs contact Kiara Bates.

Note that, because AD/ADRD research is responsive to a Congressional mandate, AD/ADRD applications are exempt from the NINDS SCR policy.

Non-percentiled applications 

This table applies to applications receiving only a priority score. There are no paylines for non-percentiled applications; rather, applications are individually considered and assessed for portfolio balance based on funds available. The table below is intended to give investigators an indication of their likelihood of funding based on historic averages. It is not intended to suggest that funding at a particular score is guaranteed. 

 

SBIR/STTR

 

Fellowships, Training, Career Development, Research Education

 

Other Research Grants