This webinar aims to increase awareness and understanding of NIH’s Unified Funding Strategy, which is designed to support NIH Institutes and Centers to make informed, transparent, and flexible funding decisions. Targeted for members of the NIH extramural research community, NIH leadership will clarify the approach’s rationale, goals, and implementation across NIH. The discussion will also address misconceptions and help foster communication between NIH staff and applicants, recipients, researchers, and the wider research community.
In August 2025, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya announced NIH’s unified funding strategy. This effort empowers Institute, Center, and Office Directors to make funding decisions that consider peer review assessments of scientific merit, Institute/Center priorities, scientific opportunity, program balance, geographic balance, and workforce needs, which will be consistently applied across the agency. Moreover, it reinforces how central NIH peer review is for assessing scientific and technical merit of proposed research ideas. The Unified Funding strategy builds on these principles, allowing NIH to consider the full range of reviewer feedback, including scientific strengths, concerns, differing expert opinions, and indicators of innovation or high-risk/high-reward research.
Panelists will include:
- Matthew Memoli, M.D., NIH Principal Deputy Director
- Jon Lorsch, Ph.D., NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research
- Ray Jacobson, Ph.D., Director, Center for Scientific Review, NIH
- Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D., Director, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, NIH
- Nora Volkow, M.D., Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH
- Karl Malik, Ph.D., Director, Division of Extramural Activities, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH