NIH Diversity Supplement

Diversity supplements promote diversity in research experiences in the biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and social sciences by funding trainees and faculty to work on an existing NIH-funded project in a particular area (often referred to as the parent grant).

The goal of these funding opportunities is to enhance the diversity of the research workforce by recruiting and supporting students, post doctorates, and eligible faculty investigators from historically marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds, including those from groups that have been shown to be nationally underrepresented in health-related research.

These supplements are meant to cover a range of trainees and activities, but all cover:

• Supporting trainees of all levels, from high school though college and graduate students, postgraduate scholars (i.e. postdocs) to junior faculty at the investigator level
• Supplements MUST support work that is captured in the scope of the original project/parent grant
• Applications have no set deadline typically (please refer to RFA) but must be submitted at least 10 weeks before desired start date of the project activity.
• Supplements are typically less competitive than peer-reviewed grant funding mechanisms, and they are not reviewed by a full peer-review faculty panel
  • Because of this, these supplements are a great entry point for early career researchers
• Budget requests follow the budget cycle of the existing grant
• Supplement funding cannot extend beyond the existing grant’s project end date; parent projects should be NIH-funded projects with 2 award years or more left

Diversity amongst researchers improves scientific inquiry by not only increasing the diversity amongst research participants, but also by ensuring that innovative research captures that of our diverse populations.

• Request for Applications:
  • https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-21-071.html
• How can I identify parent grants that have successfully applied for Diversity Supplements?
  • Using NIH RePORTER, one can search for the program announcement using the following codes in the FOA section under Advanced Search: PA-18-906, PA-20-166, PA-20-222, and PA-21-071
    • These identify only the parent grants that have received funding, and will only identify the principal investigator of the parent grant, not the principal investigator of the diversity supplement