NIH R21 grants: recently funded projects and award sizes

Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant. Two years of support for early, high-risk ideas that may lead to an R01.

New awards
2,014
in the last 12 months
Median award
$416K
first-year award (total costs)
Middle half
$242K to $439K
25th to 75th percentile
Top institute
NIAID
612 awards

About the NIH R21

The R21 supports exploratory, novel studies that could break new ground, such as new models, techniques or methods. Preliminary data are not required.

Not every institute accepts R21s through the parent announcement, so check the participating institutes before you write.

Project length
Up to 2 years
Budget
Usually up to $275,000 in direct costs over the two years, with no more than $200,000 in a single year
Research Strategy
Usually 6 pages, plus a 1-page Specific Aims
Preliminary data
Not required

Limits change between notices: the notice you apply to is what counts.

Open NIH R21 opportunities

All NIH funding

Recently funded NIH R21 projects

  • Noninvasive Measurement of Cerebral Arterial Compliance Using Fast 3D Black-blood Cine MRI

    Xiaodong Ma · Utah State Higher Education System--University of Utah, UT · NIA · $193K · Sep 29, 2026

    Arterial compliance is a critical property of human vasculature and is associated with aging and vascular disease progression. It has been linked to a wide range of neurovascular diseases, including cerebral small vessel diseases, and vascular cognitive impairment and dementia. Traditionally compliance is measured in…

  • Multilayer coordination of stratified epithelial wound closure

    Jeffrey Philip Rasmussen · University of Washington, WA · NIAMS · $165K · Sep 24, 2026

    Epithelia protect our body against environmental threats. Injured epithelia must heal rapidly to prevent lethal infections or chronic wound formation. Epithelial repair requires dynamic and coordinated cell behaviors. The dynamic cell behaviors of epithelial repair have so far mainly been studied in embryonic skin,…

  • Role of Gq signaling for PTH1R-dependent bone growth

    Harald W. Jueppner · Massachusetts General Hospital, MA · NIAMS · $200K · Sep 23, 2026

    Skeletal growth is driven by coordinated proliferation and subsequent maturation of chondrocytes within the growth plates of long bones. By mediating the actions of parathyroid hormone–related peptide (PTHrP) in growth plate cartilage, the parathyroid hormone receptor type 1 (PTH1R) plays a central role in these…

  • Immunostimulatory short non-coding RNAs in systemic lupus erythematosus

    Yohei Kirino · Thomas Jefferson University, PA · NIAMS · $200K · Sep 22, 2026

    and Abstract Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by systemic inflammation, autoantibody production, and multi-organ involvement. A major hallmark of SLE pathogenesis is dysregulated innate immune activation, including heightened type I interferon (IFN-I) signaling and…

  • Probiotic-derived SH3b domains as effector molecules

    Graciela L Lorca · University of Florida, FL · NCCIH · $398K · Sep 22, 2026

    The microbiota plays a significant role in maintaining intestinal homeostasis. However, scarce information is available on the identities and mechanisms used by these microorganisms. While bacterial extracellular vesicles have emerged as carriers of cargo with the potential to travel to distant location to exert their…

  • Noncanonical functions of PARP1 in protection against chromium(VI)

    Anatoly Zhitkovich · Brown University, RI · NIEHS · $199K · Sep 22, 2026

    Hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] is a potent human carcinogen with widespread occupational exposures in metal-processing industries. Cr(VI) is also a common environmental contaminant present in particulate pollution, at numerous Superfund sites and in drinking water of many millions of US households. Cr(III), the final Cr…

  • Failure to resolve an adaptive stress state contributes to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Severity

    Albert Ernesto Almada · University of Southern California, CA · NIAMS · $212K · Sep 22, 2026

    Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is the most severe and lethal skeletal muscle disease in the human population. Although the DMD-causing mutation has been known for 30+ years, there is still no effective cure for these patients. Current therapies are largely focused on re-expressing Dystrophin using exon-skipping…

  • Tackling tumor recurrence in pediatric brain tumors: identification of epigenetic memory and tumor microenvironment conducive to tumor recurrence in an inducible and reversible H3K27M murine model.

    Stefanie Galban · University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, MI · NCI · $401K · Sep 22, 2026

    Tumor recurrence remains a major obstacle to the successful clinical management of H3K27M-altered diffuse midline glioma (DMG), a pediatric high-grade tumor arising in the brain stem. Currently available therapies do not prevent tumor recurrence, observed in nearly all treated patients. A desperate need remains to…

  • SOMATIC EVOLUTION AND PRE-CANCER OF TP53 MUTANT CLONES

    Margaret A. Goodell · Baylor College of Medicine, TX · NCI · $429K · Sep 22, 2026

    Somatic mutations are continuously acquired in all cells in all tissues and accumulate with age to number hundreds or thousands per cell (depending on the tissue). These mutations are considered to be founding events in cancer, even though it may take decades from first mutation to malignancy development. Remarkably,…

  • Nuclear Receptors In Cancer Cachexia

    Vihang A Narkar · University of Texas Hlth Sci Ctr Houston, TX · NIAMS · $201K · Sep 22, 2026

    Cancer cachexia is a devastating muscle-wasting condition leading to poor quality of life and heightened mortality in cancer patients. While cachexia is responsible for nearly 30% of cancer deaths, there are currently no effective clinical interventions, highlighting a critical need for therapeutic target discovery…

  • Multisensory decision-making under conditions of normal hearing and hearing loss

    Justin Daniel Yao · Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, NJ · NIDCD · $432K · Sep 19, 2026

    Sensory perception often relies on integrating information across modalities. For example, visual cues from a speaker’s lips enhance comprehension of the time-varying features of acoustic speech. However, hearing loss can disrupt this audiovisual (AV) integration process, leading to perceptual and cognitive…

  • Regulation of Glioma Cell State Transition and Therapy Response by RNA Alternative Splicing

    Xiao Song · Medical University of South Carolina, SC · NINDS · $189K · Sep 19, 2026

    Gliomas are the most aggressive tumors in the brain with profound cellular heterogeneity and aberrant resistance to therapy. Single-cell RNA-sequencing studies have revealed that glioma cells exist along a continuum of transcriptional states that resemble neurodevelopmental lineages, such as neural progenitor…

  • Statistical inference for the efficacy and sustainability of interventions in clinical trials with high-dimensional endpoints

    Erjia Cui · University of Minnesota, MN · NLM · $178K · Sep 19, 2026

    Physical activity (PA) is an important modifiable risk factor for multiple health outcomes, yet fewer than 25% of the adults in the United States meet recommended guidelines. These findings prompt the development of intervention clinical trials to identify strategies for increasing and maintaining optimal PA levels.…

  • Ras signaling in type 1 regulatory T cell development and function during allergic airway inflammation

    Weishan Huang · Louisiana State Univ A&M Col Baton Rouge, LA · NIAID · $188K · Sep 18, 2026

    Allergic asthma affects over 300 million individuals worldwide and continues to rise in prevalence, posing a major public health burden. While anti-inflammatory therapies provide symptomatic relief, they fail to address the underlying immune dysregulation that drives disease progression. Allergic airway inflammation…

  • Tailoring Bacteriophage Therapy for Optimized Management of Pulmonary Infections

    Gauri G Rao · University of Southern California, CA · NIAID · $518K · Sep 18, 2026

    Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections, including pneumonia and bacteremia, and is increasingly resistant to multiple antibiotics. The limited effectiveness of current treatments underscores the urgent need for alternative strategies. Bacteriophages (phages), viruses that infect and…

Institutions with the most new NIH R21 awards

  1. 1University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh, PA45
  2. 2Johns Hopkins University, MD43
  3. 3Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC40
  4. 4Emory University, GA39
  5. 5Massachusetts General Hospital, MA37
  6. 6Washington University, MO37
  7. 7University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, MI33
  8. 8University of Colorado Denver, CO32
  9. 9University of Washington, WA32
  10. 10Yale University, CT32

How to write it

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Writing an NIH R21 application?

Grantee reads the notice, sets up every required section with its page limit and drafts each one with you, then checks the draft against the requirements before you submit.

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New NIH R21 awards with notice dates from Oct 27, 2025 to Oct 27, 2026, from NIH RePORTER. Amounts are the first-year award, direct plus indirect costs. Updated Oct 27, 2026.