PAR-25-234: NINDS Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32, Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PAR-25-234: NINDS Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32, Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

Historical reference: PAR-25-234 ended early

PAR-25-234 was an NINDS individual F32 fellowship for mentored postdoctoral research training in neuroscience. It is no longer an open funding opportunity. The NIH Guide now labels the NOFO expired, and NINDS issued NOT-NS-26-002 to end it early. That notice says the last receipt date was June 9, 2026, that the receipt dates scheduled after that date were canceled, and that NINDS would not accept applications under PAR-25-234 beyond the final receipt date.

The official early-expiration notice was released on June 10, 2026. The notice does not announce a replacement NINDS F32 cycle. This page therefore preserves the completed opportunity as a historical reference. The deadline metadata retains the final real receipt date, and historicalReference = true distinguishes an archive entry from a live listing. Do not use the instructions below as permission to submit a new application to PAR-25-234.

Key details

What the fellowship supported

The purpose of this NINDS F32 was to support promising postdoctoral candidates under the guidance of experienced faculty sponsors. The research project and training plan were meant to work together: the fellow would pursue a significant neuroscience question while building rigorous skills in research design, experimental methods, quantitative reasoning, and data analysis. The training plan also had to explain how the experience would advance the candidate toward the next stage of a research career.

The scientific scope was broad within the NINDS mission. The NOFO welcomed basic work on the central or peripheral nervous system, research connected to neurological disease, patient-oriented clinical research, and translational work that moves compounds or devices toward clinical use. Examples in the announcement included nervous-system development, synapses, circuits, behavior and cognition, sleep, sensory and motor systems, stroke, traumatic injury, neurodegeneration, movement disorders, tumors, seizures, infection, immune disorders, pain, and related areas.

The fellowship was deliberately aimed at an early postdoctoral transition. The application window was designed to make it possible to plan the project and training relationship before the postdoc began or soon after the candidate joined the proposed laboratory. Because of that timing, the NOFO strongly discouraged preliminary data. A strong application was expected to make a convincing case for the question, methods, mentor relationship, and training value without reading like an established investigator’s independent research grant.

The award was also about a new environment, not simply a new project title. NINDS expected the proposed research and training to differ substantially from the candidate’s prior work and to occur in a setting that added new expertise, methods, investigators, and ways of approaching scientific problems. The candidate and sponsor were expected to design the integrated plan together, with the sponsor providing active supervision and the institution demonstrating a suitable environment and commitment.

Funding and amount

PAR-25-234 did not promise one fixed dollar amount in the NOFO. NIH described the award budget as three components:

• a stipend for the fellow;
• a contribution toward tuition and fees at the rate in effect at the time of award; and
• an institutional allowance.

The NOFO says stipend levels and the amounts for tuition, fees, and institutional allowance are announced annually in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts and posted on the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award resources. That is why this page does not invent a single total amount. The applicable rates depended on the relevant NIH policy notices and the award year.

The fellowship did not provide a separate reimbursement for indirect costs or Facilities and Administrative costs. The NOFO explains that fellowship administration costs are handled through the institutional allowance. It also states that the number of awards depended on NIH appropriations and on receiving a sufficient number of meritorious applications.

The award period could reach 3 years of aggregate postdoctoral Kirschstein-NRSA support. That limit included combinations of individual fellowship and institutional training-grant support, so a candidate had to account for prior qualifying NRSA support when deciding how much time to request. The eligibility clock also affected the available duration: earlier submission could preserve more support time, while a later submission within the allowed window could leave fewer months available.

Candidate eligibility

The following describes the eligibility rules for the completed PAR-25-234 cycle. It is not a current invitation to apply.

Timing and postdoctoral setting

Candidates were strongly encouraged to apply before joining the proposed laboratory and, for a first postdoctoral experience, before completing terminal doctoral degree requirements. Candidates could also apply within the first 12 months after joining the proposed laboratory or research environment. Resubmissions were allowed through 18 months after joining. The purpose of this early window was to support deliberate planning and to start the research and training program promptly.

Support was limited to the first 4 years of the candidate’s activity in a specific laboratory or research environment, or with a specific mentor. A proposed postdoctoral experience in the same lab, fundamentally the same research environment, or with the same mentor or mentors who supported prior training was not considered eligible unless the application established that the proposed research, environment, and mentorship were completely distinct. Training abroad could be requested, but the application had to explain why the foreign facilities, sponsor, or other aspects offered clear scientific advantages over domestic training.

Degree, residency, and effort requirements

Before an award could be activated, the candidate had to hold a qualifying doctoral degree or equivalent from an accredited domestic or foreign institution. The NOFO listed degrees including PhD, MD, DO, DC, DDS, DVM, OD, DPM, ScD, EngD, DrPH, DNSc, ND, PharmD, DSW, and PsyD, along with equivalent doctoral qualifications. An authorized official could certify that all degree requirements had been met.

The fellowship could not support the clinical years of residency training. It could support the research fellowship years of a residency program, and research clinicians had to devote full time to the proposed research training and limit clinical duties to activities that were part of that training program. At award, full-time research training normally meant 40 hours per week or the sponsoring organization’s equivalent policy.

Eligible sponsoring organisations included public and private higher-education institutions, nonprofits, for-profit organisations, eligible federal agencies, and non-domestic entities. Foreign organisations and foreign components were permitted under the NIH rules, but a request for foreign training needed a detailed scientific justification. The NOFO did not require cost sharing.

The candidate also needed an appropriate sponsor before submission. A sponsor or sponsor team was responsible for supervising the mentored training experience, with one primary sponsor coordinating the overall plan. The sponsor had to be committed to the candidate’s research training and direct supervision, not merely listed as a nominal collaborator.

Independent clinical trials were excluded. A fellow could gain experience in a clinical trial led by a sponsor or co-sponsor, but the sponsor or co-sponsor remained responsible for trial oversight, including institutional review board interactions, informed-consent documents, serious-adverse-event reporting, and patient safety. The application had to document that leadership and the relevant expertise when such training experience was proposed.

Historical application process

Although applications are no longer accepted under this expired NOFO, its submission requirements remain useful for understanding what the completed cycle required. The application package was accessed through ASSIST, Grants.gov Workspace, or an institutional system-to-system solution. Paper applications were not accepted.

Applicant organisations had to complete and maintain the required registrations before submission. The NOFO identified SAM, a UEI, eRA Commons, and Grants.gov as part of the registration stack. Foreign organisations also needed the applicable NCAGE process. The organisation needed an active eRA Commons setup with a Signing Official and PD/PI account. Each PD/PI needed an eRA Commons account, and the personal profile associated with the fellowship candidate’s credentials had to be linked to a valid ORCID ID.

The application followed the NIH Fellowship (F) instructions and the program-specific requirements in PAR-25-234. The PHS Fellowship Supplemental Form included the Candidate Section, Research Training Plan, Commitment to Candidate, Mentoring, and Training Environment, other research-training sections, additional information, budget, and appendix. Applicants had to follow the NIH page limits and the applicable forms guide. The NOFO specifically encouraged first-person singular writing when describing the candidate’s hypotheses, contributions, and work so reviewers could distinguish the fellow’s ideas from the mentor’s existing work.

Reference letters were a separate submission process. They had to be sent through eRA Commons rather than Grants.gov, and applications without the required letters were not reviewed. Where human subjects research or clinical research was involved, the applicant had to complete the applicable PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trials Information forms. A fellow receiving clinical-trial experience had to document the sponsor’s or co-sponsor’s responsibility; the fellow could participate, but could not propose to lead an independent trial.

The electronic submission path ran through Grants.gov and then eRA Commons. Applicant organisations were responsible for tracking the application in eRA Commons, viewing it before the due time, and correcting system errors by submitting a changed or corrected application on or before the deadline. A corrected application submitted after the deadline was considered late. The NOFO set the submission time at 5:00 PM local time of the applicant organisation and noted that a deadline falling on a weekend or federal holiday would extend to the next business day.

Dates and closure history

The NOFO was posted on November 7, 2024, with an earliest submission date of January 10, 2025. Its original table listed recurring receipt dates, including February 9, 2026, June 9, 2026, October 9, 2026, February 9, 2027, June 9, 2027, and October 8, 2027. The table also showed an original expiration date of January 8, 2028.

Those later dates no longer represented available application opportunities. NOT-NS-26-002 changed the expiration date and canceled the receipt dates after June 9, 2026. The final date retained in this page’s metadata is therefore 2026-06-09, not the stale February date and not one of the canceled dates. The official notice says active NINDS F32 awards were not affected and were expected to continue through their scheduled project periods; that statement concerns existing awards, not a new application window.

What a future applicant should verify

Because the official early-expiration notice does not announce a replacement cycle, anyone seeking NINDS postdoctoral fellowship support should not assume that PAR-25-234 has reopened or that its forms and dates transfer to another announcement. Check the current NIH Guide and the NINDS funding pages for a new funding opportunity number before preparing an application. A future announcement could change the eligibility window, receipt dates, budget rates, forms, registration requirements, or clinical-research instructions.

For historical comparison, the completed NOFO’s central review logic is still clear: reviewers considered the candidate’s goals, preparedness, and potential; the rigor and feasibility of the research training plan; the sponsor’s commitment and qualifications; and the quality of the training environment. The application needed to connect the scientific project to specific skills, quantitative methods, mentoring, career development, and the candidate’s path toward an independent research career. Those principles can help a future applicant assess fit, but they should be checked against the successor notice rather than copied forward without review.

Official sources

• NIH Guide: PAR-25-234, the expired NOFO and its original eligibility, budget, dates, and submission instructions.
• NIH Guide: NOT-NS-26-002, NINDS’s official early-expiration notice.