Skip to main content

International funding - US Government

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

NIH is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services and is the nation's medical research agency.

NIH supports international research on the basis that it provides special opportunities for furthering research programs through unusual talents, resources, populations, or environmental conditions not available in the US, or that augment existing US resources.

Academics who want to apply for an NIH grant should speak to the relevant programme officer assigned to the call, as they will give you specific guidance on eligibility, and tell you whether you meet the criteria for applying to NIH as a foreign investigator. You should do this before applying for a grant.

All US Federal grant funding opportunities are advertised through Grants.gov. You can find out if you are eligible to apply as a UK-based researcher by looking at individual call guidelines.

UKRI-NSF lead agency agreements

In 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and UKRI signed an MOU, which initiated a series of lead agency agreements between the UK research councils and the various divisions of NSF. This means that academics who want to fund a bilateral UK-US project only need to apply to one funding agency (depending on where the majority of the research lies). See the resources section below for more details on each agreement.

Department of Defense (DOD)

The US Department of Defense (DOD) will fund challenge-led health research, and it is often possible for UK-based academics to lead projects. Calls are announced via Grants.gov.

Resources

NIH funding opportunities

Internal University guidelines for managing a live NIH or US Federal award