NIH K Awards

The NIH's Career Development Awards (or K awards) are generally mentored awards designed to move an early career investigator, in need of mentoring, to an independent investigator, successfully competing for an R01 (ideally) by the end of their K award.

There are some exceptions to this K description. K24s for instance are designed for midcareer investigators. However, the majority of K awards are mentored awards, including the K99/R00, K01, K08, K23, and K25. For mentored awards, the following are generally true:

• They require 75% protected time
• Generally the awards range from 3-5 years
• There are no renewals
• There is a salary cap (95K for K08s and K23s and 105K for K02s)

The NIH has K awards that are available at different points, but the idea for these awards are to facilitate and support an investigator in different points in their career, but particularly early on.

The chart above from the NIH gives a sense of the appropriate timing for applying within one's career trajectory. At the post-doctoral level, the K99/R00 is designed for post-docs looking to transition to independent or tenure-track positions at an institution different from where they did their postdoc.  The K01 is a mentored research scientist award. The K08, the mentored clinical scientist development award, is designed for MD's who want to become bench scientists.

The K23 is the mentored patient-oriented research career development award and the K25, the mentored quantitative research career development award is designed for PhD's in Engineering who want to transition to the Biological Sciences.

The important thing to remember when applying for the NIH mentored career awards is that they are for folks who would not be considered independent investigators. Those who successfully compete for an R01 or other major independent award are ineligible. But, the applicant must also show their need for mentoring and additional training, and show reviewers how a K investment in them will move them from a promising start to realize their full potential as an independent investigator after being mentored and trained during their K award. 

Resources:
NIH K Kiosk