In calendar years 2024 and 2025, COSWD, in collaboration with NIH ICO partners, is working intensively with a group of approximately 50 Research-Active Institutions (RAIs) that volunteered to engage in enhancing their knowledge of NIH funding opportunities.
These RAIs include rural institutions in IDeA states as well as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), in keeping with the CHIPS and Science Act.
Research-Active Institutions (RAIs)
RAIs are defined as institutions that:
- Have a historical mission to serve populations underrepresented in biomedical and behavioral research,
- Award degrees in the health professions or the sciences related to health, or in STEM fields including social and behavioral sciences, and
- Have received an average of no more than $25 million (annual total costs) of NIH Research Project Grant (RPG) support for the past three fiscal years.
EARA Partners Within NIH
COSWD is grateful to our partners across NIH who serve on the EARA advisory committee and EARA working group to implement this initiative: the National Institute of General Medical Sciences *(NIGMS), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), the Office of Acquisition and Logistics Management (OALM), the Office of Extramural Research (OER), and the Center for Scientific Review (CSR0. We also collaborate with the OER and the CSR to provide support to RAIs during the grant application and peer review processes. Please see below for brief descriptions and links to their websites.
Office of Extramural Research (OER)
OER serves as a vital interface for the biomedical research community by guiding investigators and their institutions through the process of attaining grants funding and helping them understand and navigate through federal policies and procedures.
Center for Scientific Review (CSR)
CSR works to ensure NIH grant applications receive fair, independent, expert, and timely scientific reviews—free from inappropriate influences—so NIH can fund promising research. They organize the peer review groups or study sections that evaluate the majority (75%) of research grant applications sent to NIH.
Why EARA Was Created
NIH acknowledges that enabling full innovative contributions to the biomedical and behavioral research enterprise requires that a broad and diverse range of institutions have the appropriate foundation for success. The basis of an institution’s success depends on having sufficient resources, awareness of funding opportunities, and knowledge about how to secure such funding.
NIH recognizes the important role RAIs play in supporting scientific research and providing health care in underserved communities. RAIs are uniquely positioned to engage these populations in research and support the translation of research advances into culturally competent, measurable, and sustained improvements in health outcomes, but often lack the research infrastructure and capacity to conduct cutting edge health-related research. The basis of an institution’s success depends on sufficient resources, awareness of funding opportunities, and knowledge about how to secure such funding.
Developed in response to a recommendation from the NIH UNITE initiative, EARA aims to address awareness and access barriers that RAIs face in enhancing research capacity and infrastructure, accelerate research progress, and address disparities in research opportunities and outcomes. View our Scientific Workforce Diversity Seminar Series (SWDSS) event that discussed how RAIs impact the scientific workforce.