NIH Policy Update on Application Submissions and AI Usage

Per NOT-OD-25-132 issued July 17, 2025 “Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications”:  

NIH is providing guidance to researchers on the appropriate usage of artificial intelligence (AI) to maintain the fairness and originality of NIH’s research application process. NIH is also instituting a new policy limiting the number of applications that NIH will consider per Principal Investigator per calendar year.

As shared by SPARCS Director, the policy update does the following:

Limit on Principal Investigator Submissions: Effective for applications submitted on or after September 25, 2025, NIH will only accept a maximum of six (6) new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications from an individual Principal Investigator (PI)/Program Director or Multiple Principal Investigators within a single calendar year. This limit applies to all activity codes except T activity codes and R13 Conference Grant Applications.

Guidance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage: NIH is stating that applications or sections substantially developed by AI will not be considered original ideas of the applicants. While AI tools may assist in limited aspects of application preparation, researchers must be aware of risks such as plagiarism, fabricated citations, and research misconduct. Detection of AI-generated content, even post-award, may lead to referrals to the Office of Research Integrity and enforcement actions (e.g., disallowing costs, withholding future awards, suspension, or termination).  The memo doesn’t meaningfully define how much AI usage would make a submission “substantially developed by AI.”

Please see the FAQs for additional details about both requirements.