NIH K01 Winners and Award History 2026

According to NIH's K01 activity-code page (opens in a new tab), K01 supports a scientist who needs advanced research training and added experience. According to NIH, the route provides protected time for supervised career development in biomedical, behavioral, or clinical sciences leading to research independence. According to NIH RePORTER (opens in a new tab), public K01 records show funded project titles, institutions, principal investigators, fiscal years, award amounts, and institute funding.

Grantsights analysis of the June 18 pull found a simple public pattern: K01 winner history is a career-development signal first. The recipient name matters, but the stronger question is whether the candidate, mentor, institution, institute, and trial status line up. For example, one postdoctoral scientist moving into a new field may fit a K01 route, while one clinically trained investigator doing patient-oriented research may need K23 instead.

Where official sources stop: NIH pages explain what K01 is, and RePORTER lists funded projects, but neither source tells a candidate whether K01 is the right career-stage route. Grantsights adds the decision layer: recipient pattern, IC mix, award amount, mentor-plan fit, and adjacent-route checks.

Based on our review of NIH career-award routes, the common mistake is making K01 a science-only decision. K01 is not only a project grant with protected time. It is a candidate, sponsor, institution, and independence case. If those pieces do not work together, a strong project can still fail.

The 8 Largest of 1,083 FY2025 K01 Records

This table lists the 8 largest FY2025 K01 records by award amount in the Grantsights pull. Each is about twice the $149,591 median or more, so read them as outliers, not as a typical K01 budget. It is a public sample, not the full export.

According to the Grantsights RePORTER pull, the FY2025 K01 record set had a median award amount of $149,591 and an average award amount of $150,451. According to NIH, the route is designed around protected time and mentored development, so budget review should start with salary, effort, mentor resources, research costs, and institute-specific policy.

The public pattern is different from R21. R21 winner history is project-scope evidence. K01 winner history is person-plus-environment evidence. A candidate with strong science but no credible mentor, no development plan, or the wrong clinical-trial lane can still be a bad K01 fit.

Next route: Use the NIH K01 career-development guide, NIH grants guide, R01/R21/R03/K comparison, Parent K01 no-trial record, Parent K01 clinical-trial-required record, and NIH grant search before assigning writing time.

2-Year K01 Award-History Movement

According to NIH RePORTER, a candidate can search by activity code, fiscal year, institute, organization, PI, and topic to find closer examples. According to NIH success-rate tables, success-rate interpretation should stay separate from project records. RePORTER shows funded projects; success-rate tables show application and award patterns where NIH publishes them.

Our analysis is that a K01 applicant should not copy a winner's topic. The right use of winner history is to compare the structure: candidate stage, institute home, mentor environment, protected-time plan, project size, and pathway to independence.

5-State And 5-Institute K01 Pattern

The state pattern does not mean geography wins by itself. It points to sponsor environment and institutional history. For a candidate outside the top states, the question is not "does my state have many K01s?" The question is whether the target institute has funded similar candidate-stage and training-plan patterns.

3 K01 Recipient Lessons From The FY2025 Pull

The first lesson is that K01 award history rewards environment as much as topic. The top organizations by FY2025 record count include Johns Hopkins University, UCLA, Massachusetts General Hospital, Washington University, UNC Chapel Hill, and UCSF. A candidate at a smaller institution can still compete, but the application must make the sponsor environment and resource plan easy to trust.

The second lesson is that institute fit controls the comparison. According to the Grantsights pull, NIA had 182 FY2025 K01 records, while NIDDK had 138 and NHLBI had 133. A candidate should search within the target IC before deciding that broad K01 history applies.

The third lesson is that K01 does not fix a missing independence story. A candidate who cannot explain the next research direction after the K01 may be better served by waiting, changing mentor structure, or comparing K99/R00, K08, K23, R03, R21, or R01.

For example, one applicant at a medical school moving from a postdoctoral methods role into aging outcomes research may use K01 to build protected time, mentor coverage, and a narrow research plan. One junior faculty member with independent funding evidence and a near-R01 question may find K01 too slow. Write the independence paragraph before the aims page. If that paragraph is vague, the route isn't ready, and another K or R route may be the best route.

What K01 Winner Patterns Say About Fit

K01 is a mentored career-development route. That means the public winner pattern should be used differently than a project-grant list.

For example, one candidate moving from computational methods into aging outcomes may fit NIA K01 if the mentor plan and training aims are specific. One physician-scientist doing patient-oriented clinical research should compare K23. One senior postdoc near independence should compare K99/R00. One junior faculty member with strong preliminary data may compare R03, R21, or R01 instead of a mentored K route.

Parent K01 Trial-Lane Split

K01 winner-history search often hides a practical problem: the applicant may not know which parent K01 lane applies.

According to NIH, applicants should check the specific funding opportunity for participating organizations, eligible candidates, clinical-trial status, and application details. That is why a K01 winner page should not send a candidate straight into drafting. It should send the candidate into route confirmation.

What Official Sources Do Not Tell You

Grantsights data adds the missing public screen. We use source method, award history, winner pattern, institute mix, and adjacent-route checks to move from "who won K01?" to "is K01 the right next application?"

What RePORTER Doesn't Tell You About K01

RePORTER can show K01 records, but it will not tell you whether a candidate should be in K01 at all. It will not grade mentor fit, sponsor letters, effort protection, candidate trajectory, trial lane, or whether the next step after K01 is credible.

The main red flag: the candidate wants K01 because it feels safer than R01, but the training plan is thin. The reviewer doesn't only ask whether the science matters. The reviewer asks whether the award will change the candidate's path toward independence. If it won't, don't spend 3 months forcing a project into a mentored award.

Use this checklist before drafting:

For broader mechanism choice, compare this page with the NIH K23 winner-history page, NIH R21 winner-history page, NIH R01 success-rate data, and NIH R01, R21, R03, and K awards comparison. Don't read K01 in isolation when the candidate may already be ready for a project grant.

Apply, Wait, or Skip

The biggest mistake is reading K01 winners as proof that a topic wins. The topic is only one signal. K01 review also asks whether the candidate, career plan, sponsor environment, research plan, and institute mission work together.

How To Go Beyond This Page

This page gives recent record counts, the 8 largest FY2025 records, top states, top institutes, and career-stage implications. For the full K01 record list, per-institute slicing, or comparisons with K08, K23, K99/R00, R03, R21, and R01 awards, run your own search in NIH RePORTER (opens in a new tab) with the activity code, fiscal year, and institute filters.

Use this page to decide whether K01 should remain on the shortlist, then confirm the current parent notices and the target institute's K01 requirements before writing. To compare other open programs, use the free Grantsights grant search.

Sources

• NIH K01 activity code - grants.nih.gov (opens in a new tab)
• NIH RePORTER search - reporter.nih.gov (opens in a new tab)
• NIH RePORTER API - api.reporter.nih.gov (opens in a new tab)
• NIH success-rate tables - report.nih.gov (opens in a new tab)
• PA-24-176 Parent K01 clinical trial not allowed - grants.nih.gov (opens in a new tab)
• PA-24-175 Parent K01 clinical trial required - grants.nih.gov (opens in a new tab)

Related Guides

• NIH K01 career-development award guide
• NIH grants complete guide
• NIH R01, R21, R03, and K awards comparison
• NIH R01 success-rate data
• NIH K23 award-history page
• NIH R21 award-history page
• Free grant databases
• NIH K08 award history
• NIH K99/R00 award history