Glossary

Funded project record

A public RePORTER row for an NIH-funded project in one fiscal year. A single project can appear in multiple fiscal years.

Core project

The stable project identifier across fiscal-year rows (e.g. R43HL177945).

Competing application record

A funded project record associated with peer review of a competing action: new, renewal, supplement/revision, or first year of a Fast-Track Phase II component.

Technology area

A controlled Cada vocabulary tag describing the technology type of a funded project.

FOA / NOFO route

The FOA or NOFO under which a project was solicited, plus its current Grants.gov / NIH Guide status (open, expired, in reauthorization gap, or unknown).

Opportunity number prefixes (PA, PAR, PAS, RFA)

NIH uses a 2-3 letter prefix on every funding opportunity number to signal what kind of announcement it is. The format is <prefix>-<IC code or NIH>-<FY>-<serial>, e.g. PA-23-230, RFA-CA-23-007.

• PA -- Parent Announcement. Broad, omnibus-style; usually accepted by multiple ICs; standard review.
• PAR -- Parent Announcement with Special Receipt or Referral. Same scope as a PA but with non-standard review (often a custom Special Emphasis Panel).
• PAS -- Parent Announcement with Set-aside funds. A PA where one or more ICs have committed a specific dollar amount in advance.
• RFA -- Request for Applications. Targeted, single-IC, fixed budget, single (or few) submission deadlines. Usually convenes a custom review panel.
• NOT -- Notice. Not an FOA; a supplement, clarification, or change to an existing FOA. NIH uses these to announce reauthorization status, paylines, and policy updates.

FOA route status

The pipeline classifies each FOA's current status based on Grants.gov / NIH Guide checks: open (active, posting awards), expired (deadline passed), reauthorization_gap (SBIR/STTR omnibus authority lapsed in Oct 2025 and entered a reauthorization gap that affected the parent SBIR FOAs), and unknown (the pipeline has not yet verified). Most rows in this dataset show unknown because the SBIR omnibus has been in reauthorization gap during the FY2023-FY2025 window and individual FOA statuses have changed multiple times.

Review panel (SRG / SEP)

The Scientific Review Group or Special Emphasis Panel listed in RePORTER's full_study_section field. SBIR/STTR SEPs use temporary members recruited for the meeting.

Panel name format (CSR codes)

NIH's Center for Scientific Review (CSR) uses a 2-4 letter abbreviation for each study section, plus a meeting-cycle number in parentheses. Example: ISB (12) means the Instrumentation and Systems Development study section, meeting cycle 12. NIH runs three review cycles per fiscal year, so the cycle number rises by ~3 each year. SBIR/STTR Special Emphasis Panels (SEPs) use temporary panel members recruited specifically for that meeting, so a panel name observed in this dataset does not mean a future application gets routed to the same panel. Panel assignment happens at submission time based on application content.

IC code vs. IC acronym

The 2-letter IC code (CA, AI, HL) is the NIH administrative serial that appears inside grant numbers (e.g. R44CA123456 = an NCI grant). The public acronym (NCI, NIAID, NHLBI) is the name most people recognize but is unrelated to the serial code: NCI funds cancer, so the code is "CA"; NIAID funds allergy + infectious disease, so the code is "AI". RePORTER and eRA Commons use the 2-letter codes, which is why this site keys on them. The acronym is shown in parentheses for readability.

NIH IC codes and acronyms (this dataset)

Code	Acronym	Full name
AA	NIAAA	National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
AG	NIA	National Institute on Aging
AI	NIAID	National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
AR	NIAMS	National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
AT	NCCIH	National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
CA	NCI	National Cancer Institute
DA	NIDA	National Institute on Drug Abuse
DC	NIDCD	National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
DE	NIDCR	National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
DK	NIDDK	National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
EB	NIBIB	National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
ES	NIEHS	National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
EY	NEI	National Eye Institute
GM	NIGMS	National Institute of General Medical Sciences
HD	NICHD	Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
HG	NHGRI	National Human Genome Research Institute
HL	NHLBI	National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
LM	NLM	National Library of Medicine
MD	NIMHD	National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
MH	NIMH	National Institute of Mental Health
NR	NINR	National Institute of Nursing Research
NS	NINDS	National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
OD	OD	NIH Office of the Director
TR	NCATS	National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences