NIH Projects with Foreign Components and NIH Highlighted Topics

NIH has ended the use of foreign subawards to support foreign components. A new application structure for NIH-funded international collaborations was announced on Sept. 12, 2025 in NOT-OD-25-155, with a companion forecasted PF5 mechanism NOFO. If you plan to apply for funds to support a foreign collaboration, please review these. Importantly, this new PF5 funding mechanism is not expected to be published until Nov 2025, so you will have to wait until early next year (Jan 25, 2026) to submit one of these new PF5 applications. Between now and then, if you submit a regular investigator-initiated R01 application to support a foreign subaward it will be pulled from the system before being reviewed.

NIH has moved away from Notices of Special Interest (NOSIs) and instead is using a new Highlighted Topics page to indicate areas of interest. This page is anticipated to be updated 3-4 times a year. There are no set aside funds to support projects that touch upon highlighted topics, nor is there a way to indicate your application is being submitted in response to a given highlighted topic. To be determined is whether being responsive to a highlighted topic may help program officers justify select pay nominations at the end of the fiscal year.