The National Institutes of Health (NIH) welcomes proposals for 2011 NIH Director’s Pioneer Awards and New Innovator Awards, which support exceptionally creative scientists who take highly innovative, potentially high-impact approaches to major challenges in biomedical or behavioral research.

Pioneer Awards provide up to $2.5 million over 5 years and are open to scientists at any career stage.

New Innovator Awards provide up to $1.5 million over the same period and are for early stage investigators (those who have not received an NIH R01 or similar grant and are within 10 years of completing their terminal research degree or medical residency).

NIH expects to fund at least 7 Pioneer Awards and 33 New Innovator Awards in summer 2011.

The deadline for submitting Pioneer Award applications is Sept. 13, 2010. See the instructions in the RFA (RFA-RM-10-008) and here for more information. Send questions to pioneer@nih.gov.

The deadline for submitting New Innovator Award applications is Sept. 20, 2010. See the instructions in the RFA (RFA-RM-10-009) and here for more information. Send questions to newinnovator@nih.gov.

To continue its strong record of diversity in these programs, NIH especially encourages women and members of groups that are underrepresented in NIH research to apply.