Administrative Supplements to Grants and Cooperative Agreements

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Institutes of Health
February 17, 2026

Purpose

This document describes the procedure that grantees must use when submitting requests for administrative supplements. Administrative supplements are used by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to add funds to an active grant or cooperative agreement for defined purposes that are within the general scope of the peer reviewed activities and aims previously approved for the parent award.

Background

NIH has a published program announcement in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts (PA-26-001) entitled “Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional).”

Policy

Administrative supplements are funds awarded above study section-recommended levels. Requests for administrative supplement funds must be for research efforts within the original Council-approved scope of the research. Consideration is restricted for increased costs due to unforeseen circumstances in high priority research programs that cannot be paid for by re-budgeting funds or from utilization of unobligated balances from prior year awards. Consistent with past policies of the NHLBI, it is anticipated that NHLBI administrative supplements will be awarded only under rare circumstances and based on the availability of funds. All activities must be completed within the current award period and may not extend beyond the award’s end date. Administrative supplements are generally not permitted during a no-cost extension, except in exceptional circumstances such as a public health emergency declaration or a natural disaster. Additionally, the budget for an administrative supplement is typically limited to the amount of the parent award’s current budget period.

Administrative supplements do not undergo peer review. Instead, they are reviewed by NHLBI program and grants management staff. In some cases, additional expertise may be called upon to assist in the review.

Examples of how administrative supplements may be used are described in the NIH Grants and Funding/Administrative Supplements page; included in this list are the following:

  • Full or part-time mentored research training experiences for individuals with high potential to reenter, reintegrate into, or retrain in an active research career. For more information, please contact NHLBI_ReEntrySup@nhlbi.nih.gov.
  • Research continuity and retention of investigators facing critical life events who are either transitioning from mentored career development awards to research independence or are first-time Research Project Grant (RPG) awardees preparing for a renewal of their current award or a second NIH RPG award, with the goal to minimize departures from biomedical research workforce. For more information, visit FAQ for K awardees or FAQ for first-time RPG awardees; or contact NHLBI_ResearchContinuity@nih.gov.

Administrative supplements cannot pay for increased costs due to an investigator's transfer or promotion, nor can they be used to expand research aims. Administrative supplements may not pay for a principal investigator (PI) to move in a new scientific direction, to obtain preliminary data for another contemplated research effort, or to use a new technology or an animal model not specified in the application. If additional funds are needed for such purposes, or others that convey an expansion in project scope, investigators should instead apply for another grant or submit a revision application (formerly termed “competing supplement”) and undergo the peer review process. Revision applications are often peer reviewed by the initial review group that reviewed the parent grant application. For further information, please contact your program official.

Administrative Supplement Application Procedure

  • The PI should contact the assigned NHLBI program official to discuss a possible administrative supplement.
  • The Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) must verify that the parent award is in compliance with all award conditions and that reporting is up to date.
  • The administrative supplement may be requested using the procedures described within PA-26-001.

Contacts

For specific questions about administrative supplements, contact the listed program mailbox (see above), or the program official or grants management specialist assigned to the grant.

For general questions about administrative supplements, contact nhlbiogminbox@nhlbi.nih.gov.

Last Updated: February 17, 2026