Washington Update

NIH Leadership Briefs Council of Councils on Newly Implemented Policy Initiatives

By: Galen Cobb
Thursday, September 25, 2025
On September 11, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Deputy Director Matthew Memoli, MD, MS, provided an overview of major policy changes recently issued by NIH leadership to the Council of Councils. The Council – composed of representatives from each NIH Institute and Center (IC) – advises the NIH Director and the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI). 

Dr. Memoli outlined how these recent directives aim to better align NIH activities with the agency’s priorities and strategic mission, including:
  • An implementation plan for Gold Standard Science (announced August 22), reinforcing NIH’s commitment to research rigor, reproducibility, and integrity.
  • Centralization of peer review within the Center for Scientific Review (announced March 6).
  • A proposal of policy options to limit allowable publication costs (announced July 8). Read FASEB’s response here.
  • The Biosecurity Modernization Initiative (announced September 9), introducing a tiered approach to research biosafety and oversight.
  • Updated guidance on academic freedom (announced August 29). 
Dr. Memoli shared details on NIH’s new Unified Strategy for funding decisions (announced August 15). Under this policy, ICs will adopt a shared framework for making funding recommendations that weighs scientific merit, program relevance, and portfolio balance, while accounting for factors such as investigator career stage, workforce sustainability, and equitable distribution of funding. Notably, the strategy eliminates the payline funding mechanism across NIH.

Although the strategy has been formally announced, NIH has not yet released full implementation guidance. FASEB will continue to monitor the rollout and provide updates as further details are made available.
Dr. Memoli also highlighted NIH’s ongoing recruitment for 13 director-level positions at the ICs and encouraged the Council to help promote these leadership opportunities.

DPCPSI Director Nicole Kleinstreuer, PhD, followed with additional details on the implementation of policies and reforms affecting the NIH funding process. Among her updates, Dr. Kleinstreuer previewed a new policy titled “Simplifying the Landscape of Applying for NIH Funding.”

The initiative will aim to streamline Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) by consolidating related grant mechanisms into new Parent Announcements, reducing the volume of IC-specific NOFOs, and reserving non-parent announcements for targeted or unique scientific initiatives not addressed by existing opportunities.

To maintain transparency around IC research priorities, NIH has launched a new “Highlighted Topics” webpage that makes available the areas of scientific interest identified by the ICs.

Meeting materials and the archived videocast are available on the Council of Councils website.