NIH RFA-DK-26-310: Diabetes Research Centers (P30 Clinical Trial Optional)

NIH RFA-DK-26-310: Diabetes Research Centers (P30 Clinical Trial Optional)

RFA-DK-26-310 is an active National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for Diabetes Research Centers (DRCs). The opportunity supports a coordinated center built around established diabetes research rather than a single independent research project. A successful center brings investigators together, provides shared biomedical resources, runs a Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) program, and creates an administrative and enrichment structure that improves collaboration and workforce development.

The first listed receipt date, March 10, 2026, has passed. The NOFO also lists a second receipt date of January 27, 2027, so this page uses that upcoming date as the live deadline. Applications for that receipt date are due by 5:00 PM local time of the applicant organization. The NOFO says that late applications will not be accepted, and it expires January 28, 2027. This is therefore an open 2027 submission opportunity, not a historical archive entry.

Key details

The Grants.gov opportunity summary lists $18,200,000 in program funding, seven expected awards, a $1,000,000 award maximum, and no minimum award. The full NOFO provides the more useful proposal limit: applications may request up to $1,000,000 per year in direct costs. A proposal that includes a Regional/National Shared Research Core or an expanded P&F Program may request up to $1,250,000 per year in direct costs. Those limits exclude first-year equipment costs, a National Enrichment Program, and Facilities and Administration costs on consortium and subcontract arrangements. NIDDK states that it intends to commit $10.4 million in FY 2026 and $7.7 million in FY 2027. Funding is not automatic; the requested amount should match the quality, breadth, and relevance of the research base served by the center.

What the DRC mechanism is meant to support

NIDDK uses the P30 mechanism to provide shared resources and facilities for multiple investigators who are working toward a common research problem or goal. DRCs are expected to promote preclinical, clinical, and interdisciplinary biomedical research on diabetes, its complications, and related endocrine and metabolic disorders. The program is intended to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment by making collaboration and specialized services more effective than separate project-by-project support would be.

The DRC must be an identifiable unit within a single institution or a consortium of cooperating institutions. The proposed center should have a clear scientific theme or set of connected themes. The application must show that its members have an existing base of strong external research funding, a consistent record of peer-reviewed publications related to the theme, and evidence of impact such as new methods, clinical guidance, translational progress, national collaborations, or health and societal effects. A center is not a convenient umbrella for unrelated laboratories. Its cores, membership, pilot program, and enrichment activities should reinforce the same research purpose.

The required center structure has three parts:

1. An Administrative Core, including an Enrichment Program. This core leads the center, allocates and oversees resources, coordinates activities, supports the required External Advisory Committee, manages internal committees, evaluates productivity and utilization, and maintains the required institutional DRC website. The application must also describe a succession plan for the contact principal investigator.
2. At least two and no more than five Biomedical Research Cores. These cores provide specialized technical resources or expertise for multiple funded research projects. The NOFO expects a broad and credible user base, usage tables, quality control, records of use, training when appropriate, and a clear explanation of why the center-supported service adds value beyond an ordinary fee-for-service resource.
3. A Pilot and Feasibility Grant Program. This program provides modest, usually one- to two-year support for new initiatives or feasibility studies in diabetes center topic areas. At least 25% of overall Center direct costs, excluding equipment, should support P&F projects. The program is particularly directed toward early-stage or new investigators who need preliminary data for an independent research application, but it may also bring experienced researchers from other fields into diabetes, endocrinology, or metabolic disease research.

The NOFO also describes optional ways to broaden the center’s reach. Applicants may propose a Regional/National Shared Biomedical Research Core, an expanded P&F program for researchers outside the DRC, or a National Enrichment Program for medical students. These options need their own justification and affect the applicable direct-cost limit. They are not substitutes for the required Administrative Core, two-to-five Biomedical Research Cores, and P&F program.

Eligibility and institutional fit

The eligible-organization list includes public and private institutions of higher education; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status when they are not institutions of higher education; small businesses; other for-profit organizations; state, county, city, township, special district, and tribal governments; eligible federal agencies; U.S. territories or possessions; independent school districts; public or Indian housing authorities; Native American tribal organizations; faith-based or community-based organizations; and regional organizations. The applying organization must be a U.S. entity. A foreign organization cannot apply, a non-U.S. component of a U.S. organization is not eligible, and foreign components are not allowed.

The NOFO overview says that only one application per institution is allowed. Its detailed eligibility section also says that an applicant organization may submit more than one application when each is scientifically distinct, while duplicate or highly overlapping applications are not accepted at the same time. Institutions considering more than one proposal should resolve that apparent tension with NIDDK before submission and maintain a documented distinction between applications.

This opportunity fits a university medical center, research institute, or consortium that already has several independently funded investigators working in diabetes or closely related areas. The research base should be large enough to support meaningful use of multiple cores and a credible P&F pipeline. The application must report at least $12 million per year in direct costs of peer-reviewed research projects in the proposed DRC research base and at least $4 million per year in member funding from NIDDK. Those thresholds are part of the NOFO’s research-base requirements and should be checked against the institution’s most recent complete fiscal year before committing to an application.

An isolated laboratory or a team with no established diabetes research base is unlikely to fit the mechanism. The center application requires institutional governance, grant administration, core utilization evidence, member records, and a plan for maintaining services over a five-year project period. A team that needs funding for one hypothesis, one trial, or one small pilot should compare this P30 with an R01, R21, or another project-level mechanism.

Application route and required preparation

Applicants must follow the NIH Multi-Project (M) Application Instructions and the program-specific instructions in the NOFO. There are two listed electronic routes:

1. Use NIH ASSIST to prepare, submit, and track the multi-component application.
2. Use an institutional system-to-system solution to prepare and submit through Grants.gov, then track the application in eRA Commons.

Registrations must be complete before submission. The NOFO warns that registration may take six weeks or more and that an incomplete registration is not a valid reason for a late application. The grants office should confirm the organization’s registrations, authorized officials, eRA Commons access, and submission route well before the January 27, 2027 deadline.

The assembled application should be planned as a connected package, not as separate narratives written by each core. The Overall component must describe the center’s long-term objectives, central theme or themes, research base, members, direct-cost base, available skills and technologies, and the way the center will improve ongoing projects, develop new projects, respond to future opportunities, and promote collaboration. The required core components should then provide the operational evidence behind that overview.

At minimum, the preparation team should organize:

• an Overall component with the center theme, research-base evidence, membership approach, leadership, and integration plan;
• an Administrative Core plan with governance, resource allocation, external advisory oversight, enrichment activities, evaluation, succession, and website responsibilities;
• two to five Biomedical Research Core plans with core directors, users, services, utilization tables, quality control, training, pricing or access logic, and value added over existing institutional resources;
• a P&F plan with solicitation, peer review, eligibility, award size and duration, mentoring, progress monitoring, conflict management, and a route for helping awardees reach independent funding;
• the required research-base and grant-support tables, facilities and resources information, biosketches, current and pending support, and other attachments required by the Multi-Project (M) instructions; and
• human-subjects, clinical-trial, animal, data-management, and other compliance information when the proposed work requires it.

For P&F budgeting, the NOFO states that up to $50,000 in direct costs per year for up to two years is anticipated for most approved P&F projects. The center must still justify its own number and size of awards. P&F funds are not intended to pay for large projects by established investigators that should be submitted through a separate research grant or to supplement already funded work.

Review and submission checklist

Before submission, the principal investigator and grants office should confirm that the center has a coherent theme, a qualifying research base, an identifiable administrative structure, and at least two defensible research cores. They should reconcile all member names and funding figures across the Overall component, biosketches, grant-support tables, core usage tables, and budget. They should also confirm that at least 25% of eligible direct costs is assigned to P&F support, that any regional or national request is separately justified, and that any proposed clinical trial has the required human-subjects and monitoring information.

The final technical check should be completed early enough to correct submission errors before 5:00 PM local applicant time on January 27, 2027. NIH encourages early submission for exactly this reason. The NOFO states that no late applications will be accepted. Review for the January 2027 receipt date is scheduled for July 2027, Advisory Council review is scheduled for October 2027, and the earliest start date is December 2027.

Reviewers will consider the center’s significance, the qualifications of the director and core leaders, innovation, approach, environment, core utilization, organization, and the likelihood that the center will increase efficiency and meaningful collaboration. For applications proposing clinical trials, reviewers will also examine the rationale, design, management, data handling, recruitment, milestones, and oversight appropriate to those trials. Clinical trials are optional, so an application can be non-trial-focused, but it must still explain how its proposed center structure advances diabetes research.

Official source and next action

The official opportunity record is the Grants.gov listing for RFA-DK-26-310, with the full announcement available from its Documents section. The listing identifies NIH as the agency, NIDDK as the participating component, the January 27, 2027 closing date, the award summary, and the eligible-organization categories. The full announcement supplies the detailed key dates, budget limits, foreign-eligibility rules, research-base requirements, application routes, and component instructions.

Teams considering this opportunity should first ask their institutional sponsored-research office to verify the research-base thresholds and the institution’s eligibility. They should then contact the NIDDK Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases at NIDDK_DEM@nih.gov about the proposed center theme and any question about multiple scientifically distinct applications. The application should be built around the required multi-component structure and submitted through NIH ASSIST or an institutional system-to-system route before the January 27, 2027 deadline.

Official links:

• Grants.gov opportunity listing: https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/4ed18a56-4304-49a2-b9b4-87b4d78eb4f1
• Full RFA-DK-26-310 announcement: https://files.simpler.grants.gov/opportunities/4ed18a56-4304-49a2-b9b4-87b4d78eb4f1/attachments/606e2919-e0bc-4eab-bef0-7ea1a513239b/RFA-DK-26-310-Full-Announcement.html
• NIDDK Diabetes Centers program: https://www.niddk.nih.gov/research-funding/research-programs/diabetes-centers