Rather than funding new grants, the NIH's Office of the Director will spend the vast majority of its $8.2 billion stimulus check to finance grants that have already been reviewed and to supplement existing grants.

A smaller sliver -- some $100 million to $200 million -- will fund new two-year "challenge grants," which will support cutting-edge short projects, and will require researchers to report the number of jobs created or preserved by the grant to show that the money is boosting local economies. A new Request For Applications (RFA) is expected to be issued in the coming week or two.

The NIH will also consider the geographic distribution of the grants it gives in order to target regions where the economy is especially faltering, the NIH's acting director Raynard Kington said at a news conference yesterday, according to ScienceInsider.

Because the NIH needs to invest the stimulus money within two years, it is opting not to issue wide calls for new applications. Rather, it hopes that by backing applications already in the funding queue or injecting capital into existing research, it will be able to rapidly save and create jobs for postdocs, technicians and summer students, as well as finance the purchase of new equipment and other lab resources.


Related stories:

NIH wins stimulus jackpot
[12th February 2009]

How to spend the NIH stimulus
[11th February 2009]