S10 Instrumentation Programs
ORIP's S10 Instrumentation Grant Programs support purchases of state-of-the-art commercially available instruments to enhance research of NIH-funded investigators. Instruments that are awarded are typically too expensive to be obtained by an individual investigator with a research project grant. Every instrument awarded by an S10 grant is to be used on a shared basis, which makes the programs cost-efficient and beneficial to thousands of investigators in hundreds of institutions nationwide. S10 awards are made to domestic public and private institutions of higher education, as well as nonprofit domestic institutions, such as hospitals, health professional schools, and research organizations. To be eligible for an S10 award, an institution must identify three or more principal investigators with active NIH research awards who demonstrate a substantial need for the requested instrument.
Awards are issued for 1 year, and matching funds are not required. However, ORIP expects institutions that compete for S10 awards to provide an appropriate level of support for the associated infrastructure, such as the space to house the instrument, technical personnel, and post-award service contracts for instrument maintenance and operation. Types of instruments supported by S10 funding include, but are not limited to, X-ray diffraction systems, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometers, DNA and protein sequencers, biosensors, electron and confocal microscopes, cell-analyzers, and biomedical imagers.
ORIP Releases iSMART to Improve S10 Instrument Management, Scheduling, and Reporting 
ORIP has introduced an online instrument Schedule Management, Access Requesting and Tracking (iSMART) toolset to improve the operational efficiency of S10-funded instruments and reduce administrative burden for S10-funded principal investigators (PIs). Accessible from the S10 Reports Dashboard and available free of charge, iSMART is particularly valuable to budget- and resource-sensitive institutions. An intuitive online tool for users to request services or access to the instrument, iSMART reduces PIs' workloads by democratizing the management duties to multiple users and leveraging instrument access requests. The instrument requests are saved and converted into usage data needed for the S10 annual reports. iSMART can be used for access management of systems other than the S10 instrument, which is ideal for core laboratory facilities. In the future, S10 instrument availability and usage summaries will help enhance user recruitment, improve efficiency of instrument use, increase transparency, promote FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles, and enable other long-term benefits.
Key features of iSMART include the following:
- Graphic Availability Calendar for easy and intuitive access
- Ability to delegate S10 system administrative tasks to the core laboratory manager
- Ability for users (i.e., project PIs) to delegate instrument requests to their associates
- Ability to request usage of multiple non-S10 instruments
- Reminder for instrument users to acknowledge the S10 grant
- Publication screen that allows users to add publications associated with an S10 grant
- Capacity to automatically convert access requests into a usage list for the S10 annual report, and ability for the S10 PI to modify the content
- Ability to import and export data via Microsoft Excel
ORIP manages the S10 programs by issuing notices of funding opportunities (NOFOs) with one annual receipt date. Active NOFOs are listed below:
- Basic Instrumentation Grant Program (BIG) – The BIG Program funds grant awards in the $25,000 to $350,000 range.
Deadline: June 3, 2024 - Shared Instrumentation Grant Program (SIG) – The SIG Program funds grant awards in the $50,000 to $750,000 range.
Deadline: June 3, 2024 - High-End Instrumentation Grant Program (HEI) – The HEI Program funds grant awards in the $750,001 to $2,000,000 range.
Deadline: June 3, 2024
ORIP encourages applicants to familiarize themselves with the program requirements in these most recent announcements before finalizing their applications so that submitted documents follow the up-to-date guidance on the application content and format.
New S10 Program for Resource-Limited Institutions (RLI-S10, PAR-23-138)
Supported by ORIP and 15 other NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices, a new NOFO: Instrumentation Grant Program for Resource-Limited Institutions (S10 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed), https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-23-138.html was published.
The NOFO promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion in biomedical research at resource-limited institutions by providing funds to purchase modern scientific instruments and enhance research capacity and educational opportunities. In addition to supporting basic, translational, clinical, or biomedically related behavioral science, the program may also provide students and trainees access to the instruments in formal courses. The required three Major Users can include researchers who have a scientific need for the instrument for teaching need to upper-level undergraduate or graduate students. The Program Director/Principal Investigator and Major Users are not required to have current NIH awards at the time of submission.
Award Budget: $25,000 to $250,000
First application due date: July 3, 2023
Earliest start date: April 2024
In fiscal years 2012–2021, the Shared Instrumentation Program awarded 1,179 instruments to academic and research institutions across the nation. The map shows the number of awarded instruments per state during this 10-year period. States receiving more than 50 awards were CA, MA, NY, PA, and TX; between 21–50 awards were CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, MD, MO, NC, NJ, OH, TN, WA, and WI; between 11–20 awards were DC, IA, IN, MI, MN, OR, and VA; between 6–10 awards were AL, AZ, DE, KS, KY, NE, NH, SC, UT, and VT; between 1–5 awards were AR, HI, ID, LA, ME, MS, MT, ND, NM, NV, OK, PR, RI, and WV; and 0 awards were AK, SD, and WY. For more information about these awards, please see the awards table on the ORIP website or, for more comprehensive data, the NIH Reporter website.
S10 Contact
Monika Aggarwal, Ph.D.: monika.aggarwal@nih.gov
Phone: 301-435-0772
