The Research Enhancement Award Program (REAP) for Health Professional Schools and Graduate Schools (R15 Clinical Trial Required), opportunity number PAR-27-078, supports small-scale research grants at institutions that do not receive substantial funding from the National Institutes of Health, with an emphasis on providing biomedical research experiences primarily for health professional, undergraduate, and graduate students and enhancing the research environment at applicant institutions.

Overview

The National Institutes of Health offers this opportunity to stimulate research at educational institutions that provide baccalaureate or advanced degrees and have not been major recipients of NIH support. The programme complements the Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) initiative by specifically supporting eligible health professional schools and graduate schools. Participating NIH Institutes and Centers include the National Institute on Aging, National Eye Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the National Cancer Institute.

The three objectives are to: provide support for meritorious research; strengthen the research environment at eligible institutions; and give health professional, undergraduate, and graduate students an opportunity to gain significant biomedical research experience through active involvement in research.

Funding and Benefits

Award Ceiling: $375,000

Award Floor: None specified

Funding Instrument: Grant

This opportunity supports investigator-initiated mechanistic and minimal risk clinical trials. For purposes of this notice, minimal risk clinical trials are defined as those that do not require FDA oversight, do not intend to formally establish efficacy, and have low risks to potentially cause physical or psychological harm.

Eligibility

Eligible institutions must award baccalaureate or advanced science degrees and have received no more than $6 million per year of NIH support (in both direct and F&A/indirect costs) in 4 of the last 7 fiscal years. For institutions composed of multiple schools and colleges, the $6 million funding limit is based on the amount of NIH funding received by all schools and colleges within the institution as a whole.

Health professional schools and colleges eligible under this opportunity include accredited institutions that provide education and training leading to a health professional degree, including but not limited to: BSN, MSN, DNP, MD, DDS, DO, PharmD, DVM, OD, DPT, DC, ND, DPM, MOT, OTD, MS-SLP, CScD, SLPD, AuD, MSPO, MSAT, and MPH. Eligible health professional schools may include schools or colleges of nursing, medicine, dentistry, osteopathy, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, public health, optometry, allied health, and chiropractic.

Applicant types include private institutions of higher education and public and state controlled institutions of higher education.

Foreign Organizations: Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities are not eligible to apply. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed.

Application Process

Applicants must follow the instructions in the Research (R) Instructions in the How to Apply - Application Guide, except where instructed otherwise in this notice. Conformance to all requirements is required and strictly enforced. Applications that do not comply may be delayed or not accepted for review.

Three submission options are available:

• Use the NIH ASSIST system to prepare, submit, and track applications online.
• Use an institutional system-to-system (S2S) solution to prepare and submit applications to Grants.gov and eRA Commons.
• Use Grants.gov Workspace to prepare and submit applications and eRA Commons to track applications.

Pre-consultation with relevant NIH staff prior to the application due date is strongly encouraged for new and resubmission applications. Applicants are encouraged to contact the Scientific/Research Contact(s) with research interests relevant to the proposed topic.

Deadline and Timeline

Posted Date: May 29, 2026

Open Date (Earliest Submission Date): June 10, 2026

Expiration Date: October 26, 2027

Applications are due by 5:00 PM local time of the applicant organization. The following standard due dates apply:

• July 10, 2026
• October 25, 2026
• February 25, 2027
• June 25, 2027
• October 25, 2027

Applicants are encouraged to apply early to allow adequate time to make corrections to errors found during the submission process by the due date.

Contact: National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging — NIA-NOFO-GrantsContacts@nih.gov, 301-402-2541