Preliminary Data on Childcare Cost Support for National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Fellows
In April 2021, recognizing the high cost of childcare, NIH began allowing recipients of full-time National Research Service Awards (NRSA) fellowships to request support for childcare costs. Fellows could make these requests in new and continuation applications or as administrative supplements to existing awards. Each fellow is now eligible to receive up to $2,500 per budget period to defray childcare costs. Here, we share preliminary data on childcare cost requests and issuances.
NIH received 229 childcare requests in fiscal year (FY) 2021 and 357 requests in FY 2022 from NRSA fellows (Table 1). We issued 228 childcare cost awards in FY 2021, totaling $572,083, and 196 awards so far in FY 2022, for a total of $509,687. Table 1 shows additional data disaggregated by the specific fellowship grant type: F30, F31, and F32. Note, the FY 2022 data are as of July 22, 2022, and are likely to change before the end of the fiscal year.
FY 2021
FY 2022
Fellowship Type
Application Count
Award Count
Awarded Dollars ($)
Application Count
Award Count
Awarded Dollars ($)
F30
29
29
72,500
43
25
63,125
F31
72
72
177,500
104
54
137,500
F32
128
127
322,083
210
117
309,062
Total
229
228
572,083
357
196
509,687
This childcare cost benefit was also extended to all NRSA trainees last October, and we have plans to report similar data on its progress at a later date.
One of NIH’s main goals continues to be ensuring that early career researchers can successfully co...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike childcare cost Family Friendly fellowship NRSA Source Type: funding