Short-term Mentored Career Enhancement Award in Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research for Mid-Career and Senior Investigators (K18- Independent Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | PAR 22 121

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 22 121

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is offering the Short-term Mentored Career Enhancement Award (K18) to help mid-career and senior investigators quickly add new capabilities to their research. This opportunity is meant for established researchers who already have an active program and want a focused, time-limited mentored experience to learn theories, tools, methods, or approaches from another scientific area. The overall idea is to make it easier for experienced investigators to pivot, modernize, or expand their work without stepping away for a long sabbatical-length retraining, and to spark durable collaborations across disciplines that can continue after the award ends.

The award supports short-term career development projects lasting from about 2.5 months up to 12 months total. During that period, the investigator (the K18 candidate) works closely with a mentor or mentoring team to gain hands-on experience in a new area that will strengthen the candidate's longer-term research trajectory. In practice, this might look like an established dental, oral, and craniofacial (DOC) researcher spending several months embedded in a lab or research group outside their usual field to learn a new analytic technique, computational framework, imaging approach, engineering method, implementation science strategy, or other cross-cutting skill set that can be brought back to their home program. It can also work in the opposite direction: an established investigator from another discipline can use the K18 to gain DOC-relevant expertise by training with DOC-focused mentors, with the goal of integrating oral and craniofacial questions into an existing research portfolio.

The FOA targets two main candidate categories. First are established DOC investigators who want to enrich their current DOC research by training with investigators in a different field. The second category is established investigators from other fields who want mentored training with DOC experts to introduce DOC research into what they already do. In both cases, the emphasis is on skill acquisition and cross-disciplinary exchange that is concrete and immediately useful, rather than a long-term, early-career style career development plan. The mentored experience is intended to broaden research opportunities, open up new collaborations, and position the investigator to pursue additional research support or new project directions after the K18 period.

This particular announcement is labeled "Independent Clinical Trial Not Allowed," which places important limits on what can be proposed. The candidate cannot apply under this FOA to lead an independent clinical trial, a clinical trial feasibility study, or an ancillary clinical trial. However, the candidate is allowed to gain experience in a clinical trial setting as long as the trial is led by the mentor or co-mentor. In other words, the K18 can support learning and contributing within a clinical trial environment, but it cannot be used as the mechanism for the candidate to run their own trial as the responsible trial leader.

In terms of who can apply as an organization, eligibility is broad and includes many common U.S.-based applicant types such as public and private institutions of higher education, state and local governments, tribal governments (including federally recognized tribes), independent school districts, special district governments, public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), and for-profit organizations (including small businesses and other for-profits that are not small businesses). The FOA also highlights additional eligible applicant categories such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), along with faith-based or community-based organizations and eligible federal agencies. Regional organizations and U.S. territories or possessions are also included among eligible applicants.

Foreign participation is limited in a specific way. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply as the primary applicant organization. Non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible to apply. At the same time, "foreign components" as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement are allowed, meaning a U.S. applicant may, when justified and permitted under NIH policy, include certain foreign activities or collaborations as a component of the overall project even though a foreign institution cannot serve as the applicant.

Administratively, this is a discretionary grant opportunity from NIH under the health funding activity category, with CFDA number 93.121. The funding opportunity number is PAR-22-121, and the posted original closing date in the provided listing is 2025-05-07. The core purpose across all applications is consistent: support a short, structured, mentored career enhancement experience that brings a new discipline or approach into the investigator's toolkit and strengthens or expands an existing research program in dental, oral, and craniofacial science, without positioning the candidate as the leader of an independent clinical trial under this specific FOA.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Short-term Mentored Career Enhancement Award in Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Research for Mid-Career and Senior Investigators (K18- Independent Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.121.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-05-09.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-05-07. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for PAR 22 121

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: