FEDERAL UPDATES FOR RESEARCHERS

On April 23, 2026, the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced that FDA-approved marijuana products and products containing marijuana regulated by a state medical marijuana license have been immediately placed into Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, downgrading it from Schedule I which includes heroin, ecstasy and LSD. 

The implications for Colorado, where medical and recreational marijuana use are legal, are unclear, since adult-use marijuana remains Schedule I. The DEA will hold a new administrative hearing June 29 through July 15, 2026, regarding a proposed broader rescheduling of marijuana. 

What This Means for Researchers: 

Research on medical marijuana is now regulated under Schedule III, which still requires DEA registration, but compliance is less burdensome than Schedule I. Research on recreational marijuana use is not impacted by this change. Research that investigates marijuana used as a medical drug is still regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

• If you currently do research on medical marijuana use: there is no change at this time.
• If you are planning research on medical marijuana use, continue to consult with the Investigational New Drug and Device Office (IND/IDE Office) and the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board (COMIRB). 

NIH has updated the Late Application Submission Policy and has ended Continuous Submission effective for application due dates on or after May 25, 2026. These changes affect how and when applications may be submitted after a deadline, including for faculty who serve on NIH review panels.

• Updated Late Application Submission Policy (All Applicants) - NIH will continue to allow late submissions only in very limited circumstances, evaluated case by case. Late applications must be submitted within two calendar weeks of the original due date. The delay must be due to extenuating circumstances affecting a listed PD/PI (not other team members or institutional staff). The reason for the delay must be fully documented in the cover letter, and the funding opportunity must allow late submissions.
  
• End of Continuous Submission (for Faculty on NIH Review Service) - NIH has ended the Continuous Submission policy, which previously allowed faculty serving on NIH review or advisory groups to submit applications at any time. Continuous Submission applications will still be accepted through August 10, 2026 (for the June/July 2026 standard due dates). After which, there will no longer be an open-ended submission window tied to review service.
  
• Special Rule for NIH Review Service - Participation in recent NIH peer review or advisory service is now the only pre-authorized reason for a late submission. If a PD/PI served on an NIH study section, advisory council, or similar body within four weeks before or after the due date, the late submission will be accepted once service is confirmed in the cover letter.

NIH will not accept late submissions for:

• Fellowship applications (e.g., F30, F31, F32, F33, F99/K00)
  
• Small Business applications (e.g., SBIR/STTR)
  
• Collaborative International Research mechanisms
  
• Any funding opportunity that explicitly states late applications are not allowed in the NOFO

Added April 2, 2026

On August 14, 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that going forward, it would post all grant and cooperative agreement notices of funding opportunities (NOFOs) exclusively at Grants.gov, a federal-wide portal for discretionary funding opportunities. NIH will no longer post these opportunities in NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts (NIH Guide) nor the weekly NIH Guide Table of Contents subscription emails. NIH will continue to provide tools in the Funding section of NIH Grants & Funding to identify potential funding categories, topics and opportunities you may be interested in. Any funding opportunity identified through this site will link to Grants.gov for the official opportunity posting. You can use Grants.gov subscription services to receive notifications of new NIH funding opportunities.

Also, if you haven’t already subscribed to the Office of Research Development and Strategy’s Funding Focus newsletter, your campus source for internal and external funding opportunities, please consider subscribing. 

Added August 27, 2025

The release of Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) has been delayed due to a combination of federal policy shifts associated with the recent administration transition and a six‑week government shutdown in fall 2025. The shutdown delayed passage of the FY 2026 Health and Human Services (HHS) appropriations, which in turn slowed agency planning and postponed the development and publication of new funding announcements.

Following enactment of the FY 2026 appropriations (Feb 3, 2026), NIH has released 11 NOFOs and posted approximately 50 forecasted funding opportunities. While forecasted opportunities include anticipated posting dates, these timelines should be viewed as potential projections and may vary widely before the full NOFO is issued.

To stay informed about both open and forecasted funding opportunities, faculty are strongly encouraged to subscribe to NIH funding notifications, which provide direct alerts when new NOFOs and forecasts are released. Additionally, faculty should subscribe to the CU Anschutz Office of Research Development and Strategy’s Funding Focus newsletter, which highlights these important external funding opportunities on a bi-weekly basis.

Added April 8, 2026

CU Anschutz accepts National Institutes for Health (NIH) funds under certain conditions of award. The attestation language broadly includes all campus research programs, not just those grants directly funded by the NIH or other federal sponsors. The legal aspects of these conditions continue to be clarified, and further updates are anticipated, including from the NIH on August 15, 2025.

To assist you in navigating any non-federal grant opportunities in these areas, including research on specific demographic groups, please refer to this campus guidance and rubric, and work closely with the research administration in your school or college while developing your funding applications. Campus guidance may be updated, so please refer to this Federal Updates for Researchers webpage often.

• School of Medicine: [email protected]
• School of Dental Medicine: Jeffrey Stansbury, PhD, Senior Associate Dean of Research, [email protected] 
• College of Nursing: Teresa Hernandez PhD, RN, FAAN, Associate Dean of Research and Scholarship,  [email protected] 
• Colorado School of Public Health: Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD, Associate Dean of Research, [email protected]  
• Skaggs School of Pharmacy: Manisha Patel, PhD, Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, [email protected] 
• Graduate School: Jennifer Richer PhD, Dean, [email protected] 

We will have a campus group review these with representatives from each school/college on a case-by-case basis and advise.

Updated February 10, 2026

In response to a significant increase in the number of grant applications submitted by individual investigators—including those developed using artificial intelligence—the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a new application submission limit on July 17, 2025. Under this policy, NIH  will only accept six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications from an individual Principal Investigator (PI)/Program Director (PD) or Multiple Principal Investigator for all council rounds in a calendar year. Administrative supplements, non-competing renewals and Type 7 applications are not counted toward the maximum. This policy went into effect on September 25, 2025, and applies to all activity codes except T activity codes and R13 Conference Grant Applications.  A PI/PD’s application limit will be counted based on the calendar year of the Advisory Council date when the application is scheduled to be reviewed.

N.B. Some institutes (e.g., National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases) may treat PIs with three or more active R01-equivalent grants as low priority, although there is no hard cap of three applications.

For information on the timelines for the new six-application limit, view this FAQ on the NIH website.

Updated April 2, 2026

National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided new guidance on July 17, 2025, about the appropriate use of artificial intelligence (AI) in NIH research applications. According to the policy, which goes into effect on September 25, 2025: 

“NIH will not consider applications that are either substantially developed by AI, or contain sections substantially developed by AI, to be original ideas of applicants. If the detection of AI is identified post award, NIH may refer the matter to the Office of Research Integrity to determine whether there is research misconduct while simultaneously taking enforcement actions including but not limited to disallowing costs, withholding future awards, wholly or in part suspending the grant, and possible termination.”

The new policy also limits the number of new, renewal, resubmission or revision applications from an individual Principal Investigator/Program Director or Multiple Principal Investigator for all council rounds in a calendar year to six.

Added August 14, 2025

In November 2025, NIH released Leveraging Institute, Center, and Office (ICO) Funding Policies along with a rubric by which ICO funding strategies are to be developed, implemented and evaluated effective with the January 2026 Council round. All ICO funding policies should: 

• Align with the NIH's mission 
  
• Prioritize scientific merit; ICOs should consider peer review information in its entirety 
  
• Integrate a breadth of topics and approaches relevant to the ICO’s priorities 
  
• Consider investigator career stage and promote sustainability of the biomedical research workforce 
  
• Promote broad distribution and geographic balance of funding, considering the total amount and type of NIH funding already available to each investigator
• Align with the availability of ICO funds 

First Level of Peer Review

When making funding decisions, ICOs will continue to consider the overall impact score, scores and critiques received during peer review. ICOs will no longer employ cutoff points from rank ordered applications in overall impact scores to determine which applications to fund. Moving forward, ICOs will consider peer review information in its entirety when assessing scientific merit. Learn more about NIH’s first level of peer review. 

Second Level of Peer Review

• Advisory councils perform the second level of peer review for applications. Their duties include: 
  Offer recommendations on policy and program development, program implementation, evaluation and other matters of significance to the ICO mission
• Assist ICOs in identifying cases in which further investment in a particular area or principal investigator is not justifiable relative to competing priorities 

Who Makes Funding Decisions

ICO Directors will continue to decide what is funded by their ICOs. In addition to the core tenets for funding policies, ICO Directors will carefully consider the budget to award for each grant, not relying solely on the requested budget as evaluated by peer reviewers, but also assessing the actual needs, opportunity costs and stewardship of taxpayer investments.

Added January 8, 2026

If you receive any attestation request, a grant-specific questionnaire or any other direct request from a federal sponsor, including but not limited to any attestation regarding DEI, gender ideology or gender affirming care, these inquiries are considered legal terms and conditions and require an institutional authority (AOR Authorized Organization Representative) to attest and submit on behalf of the University. This is typically done at the time of submission by the Office of Grants and Contracts. 

If you receive an email from a sponsor with a request for you to sign an attestation or other document related to your proposal and/or award, please submit it to us via our online form as soon as possible and do not respond to the sponsor. We will work with sponsor to provide the campus attestation as required by NIH policy.

Updated June 9, 2025

As our usual practice, the Principal Investigator or unit is fiscally responsible for pre-award spending if the award is not received. Please keep this in mind if you plan any pre-award spending.

Updated April 23, 2025

NIH mandated that effective October 1, 2025, all Senior/Key Personnel on NIH-funded grants must complete training on updated "Other Support" disclosure requirements as well as Research Security, and these requirements have generated many questions from you on how to comply.

Our campus has taken a proactive and simplified approach and purchased a Citi training module that meets both requirements: "Research Security Training (Combined Course)." 

This training is required for Proposals, JIT, RPPRs and NIH Prior Approval Requests submitted on or after January 25, 2026.

Complete the training module purchased by the campus..

The requirement also applies to external collaborators, community partners, or other stakeholders who will be designated as Key Personnel on an NIH application. If these individuals do not have access to Research Security Training through their home institution, they may complete a free, NIH-accepted training available through the NSF Secure Center website.

Updated January 30, 2026

Effective July 1, 2025, the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy requires that NIH-funded Author Accepted Manuscriptstooltip (AAM) accepted for publication be submitted to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance. These manuscripts must be made publicly available without embargotooltip on the date the final, edited article is first published – whether in print or online. Public access to the online journal or publisher websites alone does not meet this requirement.

The policy applies to all peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from NIH-funded research that are accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025, regardless of when the award was originally made, provided the award was not closed prior to July 1, 2025. 

For awards closed prior to July 1, 2025, authors with subsequent AAMs resulting from and citing the closed NIH award must continue to comply with the 2008 Public Access Policy, which allows for an embargo period of up to 12-months.

Choosing Journals for Article Submission 

• Authors can publish in one of these journals that do not hold an embargo. 
  
• Authors can publish in the open access option of a selected journal, which may require the payment of article processing charges (APCs). Please note, the Strauss Health Sciences Library has agreements in place with select publishers to waive or reduce costs.

Submission of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) into PubMed Central (PMC)

After an article is accepted for publication in a journal without embargo, compliance with the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy is achieved in one of two ways: 

• The author deposits the electronic version of the AAM to PubMed Central (PMC), or
• With prior arrangement through the contract with the journal, the journal deposits the article on the author’s behalf.  

Compliance is evidenced by the assignment of a PMC Identifier (PMCID) to the article. When AAMs are deposited into PMC, an NIH Manuscript Submission Identifier (NIHMSID) may be used temporarily until the submission process is complete, and a PMCID is assigned.

For further information and advice, visit the Publishing and Authorship webpage on the Strauss Health Sciences Library website.

NIH Allowable Publication Costs

On July 8, 2025, NIH director Jay Bhattacharya announced that NIH intends to implement a cap on allowable publication costs starting in FY 2026. The announcement was followed by a request for input by Sept. 15, 2025, from all interested individuals and communities on proposed options for limiting costs. A decision by NIH on potential caps has not yet been announced.

Resources: 

• 2024 NIH Public Access Policy
• NIH Public Access Policy Frequently Asked Questions
• NIH PubMed Central Journal List (Journals that do not hold an embargo)
• NIH Selective Deposit Collections (Journals willing to deposit per author agreements)
• Strauss Health Sciences Library Journal Agreements 

Updated December 18, 2025

A journal embargo is a delay imposed by the journal after publication of a manuscript, before the manuscript is made available to the public in PubMed Central. For more information about making manuscripts available in PubMed Central to comply with 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, please review this FAQ: What are my options for making my article open access without embargo so that I can comply with the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy?

A media embargo gives journalists early access to peer-reviewed research with the agreement that they will publish their coverage after the journal’s embargo lifts and once the paper is available online. This window, which is usually 48 to 72 hours before a paper publishes, gives journalists time to interview authors, verify findings and prepare accurate, well-contextualized stories to be ready to publish as soon as the embargo lifts.

Contact [email protected] to work with the CU Anschutz media team to get media publicity for upcoming peer-reviewed papers.

Added December 18, 2025

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced a major structural change for all NIH-funded research involving foreign subawards, effective May 1, 2025. Under the new policy, foreign subawards can no longer be issued under prime recipient awards.

Going forward:

• Foreign subawards are no longer allowed. NIH will not issue new, renewal, or non-competing continuation awards that include subawards to foreign entities.
  
• Prior approval requests to add new foreign subawards to existing projects will no longer be considered.
  
• Current awards with foreign subawards will be restructured or renegotiated to remove the foreign subrecipient, or if not possible the award will be terminated.
  
• This policy applies immediately, including to proposals currently in development.

All planned foreign collaborations now should use the NIH PF5 application. Please review this funding opportunity and allow ample time to development the application.

If you believe your proposals are impacted by this change, please contact the Office of Grants and Contracts using the CU Anschutz Federal Transition Inquiry Form.

Updated April 10, 2026

The Joint Associations Group (JAG) on Indirect Costs is a group comprising national organizations that represent America’s academic, medical and independent research institutions, along with other relevant experts. Established on April 8, 2025, JAG has convened to develop the Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) model. This is a new approach to indirect cost recovery, or facilities and administrative (F&A) costs that has been proposed as an alternative to the federal government’s proposed across-the-board percentage cap for F&A costs at research institutions across the country. 

In July 2025, the FAIR model was presented as a recommendation to Congress and the Executive Branch to replace the current F&A cost structure. In September 2025, the JAG released a statement urging policy makers to take steps to implement the model. 

Campus leadership is engaged on this topic and closely following developments related to F&A rates and specific impacts on our campus. 

Additional Resources: 

• AAMC: Facilities & Administrative Costs 
  
• COGR: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on JAG Effort and FAIR Model

Added November 12, 2025