Career Level: Junior Faculty

  1. High School & Undergraduate Student
  2. Doctoral & Medical Student
  3. Post
    Doctorate
  4. Junior
    Faculty
  5. Established Investigator

Career Development Awards (K-series) are available for individuals just beginning their faculty appointments who have protected time for research. NIDDK supports K awards for both Ph.D. researchers and physician scientists.

Contact NIDDK training program staff with questions well in advance of deadlines. 

Awards that are for the training or career development of a single applicant.

  1. Supports basic scientists (non-clinicians) as they transition to independence and develop their careers with the support of a mentor.

  2. Supports early clinician scientists who are transitioning to independence in a junior faculty position while pursuing a basic or clinical research project and developing their career.

  3. Supports the career development of investigators who have made a commitment to focus their research endeavors on patient-oriented research. Supports early clinician scientists who are transitioning to independence in a junior faculty position and developing their career while pursuing a clinical research project that involves direct patient contact and the support of a mentor(s).

  4. Supports highly productive postdoctoral fellows pursuing  mentored research projects while looking for faculty appointments. 

  5. NIH may repay up to $35,000 of your qualified student loan debt per year, including most undergraduate, graduate, and medical school loans if you are actively engaged in clinical research.

  6. NIH may repay up to $35,000 of your qualified student loan debt per year, including most undergraduate, graduate, and medical school loans if you are actively engaged in research related to a pediatric disease or disease model.

  7. Supports research projects that can be completed in a 2-yr time frame. NIDDK does not participate in the parent NOFO for R03s, but issues NOFOs for specific audiences, e.g. NIDDK- supported K01, K08, and K23 awardees.

  8. Supports small-scale research projects at educational institutions that that enroll significant numbers of students from backgrounds nationally underrepresented in biomedical research, award baccalaureate and graduate degrees in biomedical sciences, and receive limited NIH funding.

Awards that are under the direction of a senior faculty member who is responsible for selecting trainees or scholars. Perform a keyword search using the NIH RePORTER system to see who NIDDK is currently supporting.

  1. Award to an institution to support several individuals as they transition from fellowship to faculty while pursuing a research project with the help of a mentor(s).

  2. Supports partnerships between American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) tribes or tribally-based organizations and institutions that conduct intensive academic-level biomedical, behavioral and health services research.

Awards to support a diverse scientific workforce.

There are no corresponding funding mechanisms to display.

See About Funding Mechanisms for an overview of mechanisms commonly used by NIDDK to fund researchers.

Last Reviewed November 2023