2009 NIH Directors Pioneer Award Program (DP1)

archived

Purpose. The NIH Directors Pioneer Award Program complements NIH's traditional, investigator-initiated grant programs by supporting individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose pioneering and possibly transformative approaches to addressing major biomedical or behavioral challenges. To be considered pioneering, the proposed research must reflect ideas substantially different from those already being pursued in the investigators laboratory or elsewhere. The NIH Directors Pioneer Award Program is a High-Risk Research initiative of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The 2009 Pioneer Award competition will proceed in two phases. The first phase is a pre-application phase in response to PAR-09-012. Pre-applications will be evaluated by a group of external reviewers, and those investigators whose submissions are judged to be the most outstanding will be notified of the opportunity to submit full applications under this FOA. The 2009 Pioneer awardees will be selected from this group of applicants. Mechanism of Support. This FOA will utilize the DP1 grant mechanism. Pre-applications for 2009 Pioneer Awards were solicited under PAR-09-012.Applicants must read both FOAs. Funds Available and Anticipated Number of Awards. Total funding available is approximately $5 million for the five-year period.It is anticipated that at least 5-10 awards will be made in 2009.

High