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National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award is a research initiative first announced in 2007 designed to supports exceptionally creative, early-career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects. The focus is specifically on "innovative" research that has a potential to produce paradigm shifting results. The Award is for $300,000 (direct cost) per year for five years.
The NIH Director's New Innovator Award has one of the lowest "success rates" of all NIH funding mechanism. In 2014 only the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award had a lower "success rate." During the evaluation process each New Innovator application is reviewed and scored independently by three external reviewers. NIA program leadership then rank the applications by averaging the Overall Scores, and the highest scored applications are considered finalists. The finalist applications are then scored by a second set of reviewers, and are ranked once more by program leadership using the second set of scores. The final ranking is then sent to the NIH Director as a recommendation for funding.