NIHCM Foundation’s Research Grants 2025-2026

The NIHCM Foundation’s Research Grants program supports innovative, independent, investigator-initiated research with the goal of informing managed care organizations, policymakers, and stakeholders about ways to improve the affordability and quality of U.S. health care. The foundation is specifically interested in projects that address rising health care costs and affordability through improvements in health care management, financing, delivery, and organization. For the 2025–2026 funding cycle, NIHCM is accepting letters of inquiry for research in several focused topic areas. These include drug pricing and affordability—particularly studies examining the factors that influence drug pricing, patents, pricing transparency, and policy interventions. Research on GLP-1 agonists and related medications is of special interest. Additional topics are provider consolidation and market power, where the effects of health care competition and consolidation on costs, price variation, quality of care, and patient access are explored. The program also seeks projects on health care delivery models, with an emphasis on value-based and hybrid care models, and prior authorization protocols that optimize both affordable coverage and high-quality care. Chronic disease management and the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in health care, including the effects of AI on electronic health record coding intensity, are also highlighted. Applications outside of these topic areas may be considered if they address rising health care costs and affordability via improved management, financing, delivery, or organization of care. The foundation is making a total of $500,000 available for this cycle, with most individual grants in the $50,000 to $60,000 range. Projects may be funded in amounts up to the program ceiling, as appropriate. The application process begins with a required brief letter of inquiry (LOI) outlining the study idea. LOIs must be submitted by 5:00 PM EDT on July 18, 2025, through NIHCM’s online entry system. Applicants may submit at any time prior to this deadline. LOIs must follow the structure specified by NIHCM. A small number of applicants will be invited in August to submit full proposals, which will be due in September 2025. Grant winners will be notified in December 2025, with funded projects able to start as early as January 2026. Eligible applicants include independent researchers whose work aligns with the program’s aims. There is no stated restriction on eligible institutions or geographies; however, proposals must be able to demonstrate a potential impact on managed care organizations, policymakers, or similar stakeholders in U.S. health care. Awards are not made on a rolling basis, and matching is not required for this opportunity. For questions and to submit applications, applicants may use the contact information provided on the NIHCM Foundation’s website. The main office is located at 1225 19th St. NW, Suite 710, Washington, DC 20036. Phone inquiries may be directed to 202-296-4426, and faxes to 202-296-4319. Recent grant recipients have included researchers from major universities such as Brown University, the University of Texas Medical Branch, the University of Utah, Duke University, University of Colorado, NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, Florida State University, Michigan State University, Georgetown University School of Health, and UT Southwestern Medical Center. These funded projects have addressed a wide range of research questions within the broad focus areas of cost, quality, management, and delivery of care. The NIHCM Foundation emphasizes evidence-based research that can contribute to policy and practice changes. All proposal submissions and inquiries should adhere to deadlines and requirements as described in the program’s official guidelines. Funding decisions are based on the relevance of the topic, methodological rigor, potential for impact, and alignment with the foundation’s mission.