Pilot Projects Enhancing Utility and Usage of Common Fund Data Sets (R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

Summary

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is soliciting pilot project proposals to enhance the utility and usage of NIH Common Fund data sets. This is an R03 small research grant mechanism, explicitly excluding clinical trials. The opportunity is posted on Grants.gov under the HHS-NIH agency and is open for applications from late January through late June 2026. The goal is to fund small-scale, exploratory research that improves how existing Common Fund data resources are accessed, integrated, or applied by the research community.

What they want

How they evaluate

Risks & flags

• Limited metadata available — full program announcement text not provided, making it difficult to assess whether any experience requirements are unduly narrow
• R03 mechanism has a capped budget (typically $50K direct costs/year), which may limit competitive field to smaller or academic-only institutions