NIH New Innovator Award (DP2) Winners 2026

This guide is for: Early-career faculty and senior postdocs considering the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, plus research development offices that want the real 2026 winner list, award sizes and trend before deciding who should apply.

Last updated: October 12, 2026

Full answer: NIH funded 42 New Innovator Awards (DP2) in FY2026, according to a Grantsights pull of NIH RePORTER on October 12, 2026, up from 29 in FY2025 and above the roughly 30 the notice estimated. The median first-year award was $761,620 in total cost, and 38 of the 42 carried exactly $475,000 in direct costs, the new annual cap. California held 13 awards and Massachusetts 8. These are funded projects; RePORTER doesn't show the applicant pool or success rate.

NIH Director's New Innovator Award (DP2) Winners and Award History: 2026 Awardees

Data note: Grantsights queried the NIH RePORTER project search API on October 12, 2026 for activity code DP2, fiscal years 2019 through 2026. New awards are project numbers starting with "1"; the DP2 has no resubmission records in this window. New Innovator awards were separated from other DP2 programs by funding notice number (RFA-RM series). Amounts are RePORTER's award_amount, the total cost obligated in that fiscal year, which for multi-year-funded cohorts covers more than one budget year. The FY2026 count of 42 matches the 2026 awardee list on the NIH Common Fund site.

According to NIH, the New Innovator Award is part of the Common Fund's High-Risk, High-Reward Research program and supports Early Stage Investigators proposing unusually creative projects with potential for broad impact. The FY2026 notice, RFA-RM-25-002, allowed up to $475,000 in direct costs a year for five years and asked for a 10-page essay in place of Specific Aims and a detailed experimental plan.

Grantsights analysis of the RePORTER records found two shifts in the 2026 cohort. It was larger than the notice estimated, at 42 awards against about 30, and the way NIH pays the award changed. FY2025 awards were funded three years at a time; FY2026 awards were funded one year at a time at a higher annual rate. That second change explains why the FY2026 median looks half the size of FY2025's, even though the total budget a winner can draw grew.

How Many New Innovator Awards NIH Makes Each Year

According to NIH RePORTER, New Innovator cohorts ranged from 29 to 72 awards between FY2019 and FY2026.

The FY2025 cohort of 29 was the smallest in the window. The FY2026 cohort of 42 recovered partway but stayed below the FY2021 to FY2023 range. The last three New Innovator notices each estimated about 30 awards, so the 42 in FY2026 beat the estimate by about 40%. The FY2027 notice again estimates about 30.

Medians in this table aren't comparable year to year. FY2019 and FY2020 awards appear, from their amounts, to have been funded close to fully up front. FY2021 through FY2025 were funded in a three-year segment. FY2026 was funded annually.

How the DP2 Budget Changed for the 2026 Cohort

The FY2025 notice, RFA-RM-24-003, capped direct costs at $900,000 for years 1 to 3 and $600,000 for years 4 to 5, issued as two multi-year segments. That's $1.5M in direct costs. The FY2026 notice raised the ceiling to $475,000 a year, or $2,375,000 in direct costs over five years, and RePORTER shows it paid one year at a time.

Specifically, a 2026 winner can draw about 58% more in direct costs over the award than a 2025 winner ($2,375,000 versus $1,500,000). That's a meaningful change for anyone deciding whether the award is big enough to justify a pivot in the lab. One FY2026 record, at $2,194,500, was funded for more than one year, which is why the range tops out above $2M.

The 2026 New Innovator Award Winners

These are the 42 FY2026 New Innovator records in RePORTER under RFA-RM-25-002, listed by awardee surname with the institution and the NIH institute administering the award. Names and institutions are public record from NIH RePORTER.

The full abstracts and budgets are on each project's RePORTER page. The NIH Common Fund New Innovator funded research page lists the same 42 awardees with project titles.

Where 2026 New Innovators Work and Which Institutes Administer Them

According to NIH RePORTER, the 42 awards went to 30 institutions in 14 states.

Stanford and UCSF each had 4 awards. Dana-Farber, the Broad Institute, the University of Washington, the University of Colorado Denver, UC Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins each had 2, and Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center had one each. RePORTER classifies 6 of the host organizations as research institutes, and the list includes non-university hosts such as the Broad, Van Andel, Monell and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, so the DP2 isn't limited to universities.

Applicants don't apply to an institute for this award; the administering institute is assigned based on the science. Don't read the IC column as a sign that one institute favors New Innovator applicants.

Other DP2 Programs in RePORTER

Not every DP2 is a Common Fund New Innovator. RePORTER mixes them under one activity code.

The NIAID version differs in one important way: it accepted postdocs who'd move to an independent position within a year, not only faculty. Its last listed due date was October 10, 2025, and the notice has expired. Anyone counting "DP2 winners" from RePORTER without filtering by notice will overstate the New Innovator cohort by nearly double in FY2026.

Current Eligibility and Deadlines

The FY2027 notice, RFA-RM-27-002, was posted June 26, 2026 and closed August 17, 2026, with about 30 awards and about $23 million expected in FY2027. As of October 12, 2026, the NIH Common Fund page lists no open New Innovator announcement. The FY2026 and FY2027 notices both posted in June with August due dates, so plan on that window for the FY2028 cycle, but confirm when NIH posts it. No late applications are accepted.

What NIH RePORTER Doesn't Tell You About New Innovator Winners

RePORTER lists 42 winners. It doesn't say how many applied. RePORTER has no application counts, so it can't give a New Innovator success rate. With roughly 30 to 42 awards a year open to every Early Stage Investigator in biomedical science, the honest planning assumption is that most strong applicants won't win in a given year.

The essay format is the trap. The New Innovator review rewards a bold, clearly argued idea and an investigator who can make it work. It doesn't reward a standard R01 dressed up as high-risk. A common mistake is submitting an essay that reads like Specific Aims with the headings removed. The Specific Aims writing guide is useful precisely as a contrast: that structure is what the DP2 essay asks you to drop.

Grantsights checked the RePORTER list against the Common Fund's 2026 awardee page: both show 42 awardees, and the names and institutions line up. The award amounts and administering institutes come only from RePORTER.

Should You Apply for the Next New Innovator Cycle?

The application is shorter than an R01, a 10-page essay with no Specific Aims page, so it's often worth a try for an eligible investigator with a truly unusual idea. Don't let it delay a fundable R01, though; the R01 is the award that keeps the lab running. Compare the outcomes in the NIH R01 award history, and look at the NIH R35 MIRA award history for another program-level award early-career investigators can hold. The NIH R21 award history covers the smaller exploratory route. The NIH grants complete guide covers the broader mechanism map, and the NIH biosketch guide covers the biosketch, which matters in a review that scores the investigator as well as the idea. To scan other open NIH programs, use the free Grantsights NIH grant search.

For your own search, open the NIH RePORTER project search, set activity code DP2, and filter by funding opportunity number to separate New Innovator awards from other DP2 programs.

Sources

• FY2026 New Innovator notice (RFA-RM-25-002) - grants.nih.gov
• FY2025 New Innovator notice (RFA-RM-24-003) - grants.nih.gov
• FY2027 New Innovator notice (RFA-RM-27-002) - simpler.grants.gov
• NIAID New Innovators Awards (PAR-23-198) - grants.nih.gov
• NIH Common Fund New Innovator funded research - commonfund.nih.gov
• NIH DP2 activity code - grants.nih.gov
• NIH RePORTER project search - reporter.nih.gov

Related Guides

• NIH R01 winners and award history
• NIH R35 MIRA winners and award history
• NIH R21 winners and award history
• NIH grants complete guide
• How to write NIH Specific Aims
• NIH biosketch guide