NIH Challenges and Prize Competitions

Recognizing exemplary approaches to menopause education for health care professionals.

This challenge seeks to identify, amplify, and reward curricula that comprehensively address the menopausal transition, including menopause hormone therapy, within U.S. health education programs.

Coming Soon

NIH invites innovators to develop digital health tools that help people living with or at risk for autoimmune diseases monitor diet, nutrition, and symptoms.

Phase 1 openS On 10/01/26

This Challenge seeks meaningful, actionable, innovative, and practical strategies to foster early community engagement and build new academic-community partnerships for future research aligned with the NIDDK mission. 

Registration opens 10/01/26

This challenge invites people with Down syndrome, families, caregivers, researchers, clinicians, students, advocacy organizations, and other members of the Down syndrome community to create original content that brings research to life. 

Submission open 10/05/26 to 12/18/26

This challenge aims to incentivize the development of innovative methods, tools, or frameworks that enable robust temporal embeddings and temporal reasoning in knowledge graphs.

Opens ON 10/05/26

This Challenge aims to identify and develop proof-of-concept and prototype sensing systems that demonstrate how quantum-enabled approaches alone or in hybrid quantum-classical and other advanced sensing and detection approaches and configurations can improve detection and measurement in in vitro NAMs for toxicity, safety and other preclinical assessments.

Registration open 10/25/26

This challenge seeks evidence packages for promising generic drug repurposing candidates to treat high-cost conditions. 

opens 11/02/26

Using AI to uncover patterns in kidney images, accelerate discovery, and improve health.

The challenge “Kidney Artificial Intelligence Discovery Challenge: From Nebulae to Nephrons” seeks to advance a new discovery paradigm for kidney disease research by adapting anomaly-detection approaches used in astronomy and other data-intensive fields to the analysis of kidney tissue images, multi-omics data, spatial data, and associated clinical information.

Registration Opens 11/05/26

Driving Innovation in Aging

This challenge is intended to advance novel biomedical innovations to improve the health and well-being of older Americans.

Opens on 12/01/26

The NIH Common Fund announces the “Targeting RNA in Disease with Novel Technologies (TRDNT)” Challenge – Phase II: Stage I. TRDNT is the latest initiative from NIH’s Venture Program, which supports short-term projects with long-term impact.

Phase 2 open 12/01/26  - 02/01/27

The National Cancer Institute Office of Data Sharing Impact Prize seeks to collect ideas and strategies that advance the broad, rapid, and equitable sharing of NCI-funded cancer research outputs.

Open until 10/19/26

The TOPx HHS Tech Sprint for AI and Invisible Illness is a fast-paced, national prize competition that puts U.S. Open Data in the hands of the public—mobilizing industry, entrepreneurs, and communities to build real-world tools using AI to address urgent health challenges. 

Phase 2 open UNTIL 10/15/26

Stimulating Excellence in Aging Research Mentorship

The National Institute on Aging's (NIA) Office of Strategic Extramural Programs (OSEP) is hosting the 2026 NIA Mentorship Prize to recognize and stimulate excellence in aging research mentorship.

Phase 1 Open Until 10/15/26

To support research ideas in the areas of drug use, misuse, and substance use disorder (SUD) that are intended to be the foundation for developing successful new startups. 

OpEn until 11/02/26

The Childhood, Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Data Innovation Challenge seeks innovative solutions and approaches that will enrich resources (data, methods, or tools) within the CCDI Data Ecosystem, build a federated learning health system, and enable exploration, visualization, interoperability, integration and analyses to benefit the outcome of childhood and AYA cancer patients.

Milestone 1 Open until 11/13/26

This challenge will have a special emphasis on US Maternity Care Deserts and build upon the success of the original CCMH to encourage and reward non-profit community-based organizations, advocacy organizations, and state or federally recognized Tribes to develop research capabilities and infrastructure to pursue research projects in maternal health, particularly of maternal morbidity and mortality.

Training Phase 10/??/26 - 12/??/26

Low-cost, rapid, and accurate instruments for field quantification of illicit substances.

The goal of NIDA’s “One-Step, Rapid, Low-Cost Definitive Drug Testing at the Point of Need” Challenge is to solicit solutions (device prototypes) that can address the lack of low-cost, rapid, and accurate instruments for laboratory or field quantification of drugs of abuse and emerging threats.

Phase 1 open until 12/15/26 05:00 PM ET

This challenge seeks to accelerate the development of innovative, interoperable, and scalable sensing technologies that improve early detection, continuous monitoring, prevention, and management of chronic diseases among populations experiencing the greatest burden of disease.

Register by 12/18/26

Generation and public dissemination of data on oligonucleotide toxicity in human cells.

The Oligonucleotide Toxicity Open Data Challenge incentivizes publicly accessible high-quality datasets from human cells to predict oligonucleotide toxicity from sequence and chemical modification.

Phase 2 open until 12/31/26

This challenge aims to build a modern, AI-powered search engine to identify relevant biomedical research studies that explore genomic and phenotypic associations stored within the NLM Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP).

Code Upload Open until 01/15/27

This award program recognizes investigators who demonstrate both contemporary achievement in and a commitment to disability health research.

Open until 01/15/27

Recognizing practices that strengthen research by preventing unnecessary exclusion.

 This challenge will build collective knowledge of effective, practical strategies for including people with disabilities in clinical research and support implementation of the NIH Strategic Plan for Disability Health Research FY26-FY30. 

Open until 01/15/27

Develop the next generation of accurate, scalable visual acuity technologies

The NEI Vision Precision Challenge will encourage participants to develop novel solutions that reduce reliance on controlled testing environments and specialized personnel while maintaining clinical validity and supporting use across clinical, community, and remote settings.

Register by 01/15/27

This challenge aims to catalyze the development of AI-powered systems capable of generating synthesized, citation-backed responses that support complex literature exploration and help biomedical researchers identify and take appropriate next steps, substantially reducing the time and cognitive burden associated with navigating and interpreting the scientific literature.

Registration open UNTIL 01/15/26

Connect Data. Reimagine Analytics. Transform Whole-Person Chronic Disease Disparities

This challenge envisions a future in which data science, artificial intelligence, synthetic data, digital twins, and advanced analytics are harnessed to transform how we understand, prevent, and address chronic diseases and health disparities.

Open Until 01/22/27

Total prizes: $1,000,000

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is launching the Real-World Evidence (RWE) Innovation Challenge, a national prize competition designed to establish validated benchmarks for analytic methods operating on real-world clinical data.

Registration Open until 02/02/27

Population Modeling for Whole-Person Health to Mitigate Chronic Disease Disparities Grand Challenge envisions a future in which data science, artificial intelligence, synthetic data, digital twins, and advanced analytics are harnessed to transform how we understand, prevent, and address chronic diseases and health disparities.

Registration open until 02/19/27

The “Access, Delivery, Engagement, and Retention for Long-Acting HIV Prevention and Treatment in the United States” Challenge (LAUNCH Challenge) encourages and rewards innovative ideas to address persistent, well-documented barriers to the implementation and scale up of HIV prevention and treatment interventions.

Phase 2 open  10/??/26 - 02/??/27

Build the future of human-based biomedical research with new approach methodologies

This challenge invites innovative combinatorial NAMs solutions from multidisciplinary teams who can demonstrate implementation of human-based solution in a practical form within a 3-year period.

Phase 2 Milestone 1 open UNTIL 03/22/27

Solve translational biomedical problems with quantum computing.

The NIH Quantum Computing Challenge seeks to adopt, optimize, and deploy existing quantum algorithms or develop new quantum algorithms for biomedical problems, leading to a set of transformative solutions.

Stage 2 final project delivery 03/29/27

Simplifying Supplements, One Fact at a Time

The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements wants to reimagine how people learn about dietary supplements. ODS wants to transform NIH's trusted fact sheets into interactive digital experiences for everyone.

Phase 2 open until 05/21/27

This challenge is designed to stimulate the development of innovative, scalable, and clinically meaningful approaches for assessing visual function beyond traditional visual acuity testing.

Registration Open until 07/11/27

This challenge seeks to identify and reward exemplary curricula for integrating nutrition training into health care education for physicians and nurses across the nation.

Closed on 09/15/26

The LymeX Healthathon (innovation sprint) is a national competition to elevate the lived experiences of patients, caregivers, and clinicians and translate them into shared insights that support peer-to-peer learning and help people living with Lyme today.

closed on 08/28/26

The LymeX Visible Voices Prize aims to elevate patient experiences and improve understanding of Lyme and tickborne disease diagnosis. It mobilizes patients, caregivers, clinicians, and innovators to create clear, trusted educational resources that address urgent gaps in awareness and care.

CLOSED ON 07/31/26

Phase I: Planning Comprehensive RNA-Targeting Technologies

Phase I closed 07/15/26

Solve translational biomedical problems with quantum-enabled sensing technologies.

The NIH Quantum Sensing Technology Challenge aims to spur innovative applications of existing quantum-enabled sensing technologies and to adapt and optimize them for use in biomedical research and clinical settings.

Closed 06/29/26

The NIBIB DEBUT Challenge solicits design projects that develop innovative solutions to unmet health and clinical problems.

Closed 06/05/26

Recognizing NINDS-funded investigators for their dedication to mentorship and training.

Closed 05/29/26

Revolutionizing technology development of delivery systems for in vivo genome editing.

A $6,000,000 competition to improve in vivo delivery technologies for genome editors in two Target Areas: 1. Programmable delivery systems, and 2. Non-viral delivery across the blood-brain barrier.

Closed 05/04/26

Teens and young adults, create comics that tell stories about beauty standards and health!

The NIH Office of Disease Prevention invites teens and young adults ages 13 to 25 to create original comics about ways to reduce health risks from certain beauty products and behaviors.

Closed 04/02/26

Accelerating the development of innovative technologies for diagnosis of endometriosis.

Awarding up to $3 million in cash prizes to accelerate development of non-invasive technologies to improve diagnosis of endometriosis—a common and often debilitating gynecological disease.

Closed 03/01/26

Promoting data sharing and developing a robust metric to reward exemplary data sharers.

Testing novel ideas in drug use, misuse, and SUD to potentially become biotech startups.

closed 02/13/26

Testing novel ideas in drug use, misuse, and SUD to potentially become biotech startups.

Closed 02/04/26

Elevate your organization’s ability to improve health for people with disabilities.

This prize competition seeks to engage community groups and support their initiatives to improve health equity for people with disabilities.

Closed 01/20/26

Transform and share your art to raise awareness for all rare diseases!

NCATS seeks innovative ways to raise awareness about rare diseases through art, highlighting the importance of research and advancing treatments that address multiple rare diseases.

Closed 01/02/26

Shape the future of rigorous and replicable science.

The Replication Prize will collect ideas on important research to replicate, and creative and successful strategies to integrate replication into research practice.

Closed 12/19/25

Join the NOURISH Autoimmunity Challenge integrating nutrition in autoimmune research.

The NOURISH Autoimmunity Challenge is a crowdsourcing competition to generate innovative ideas integrating diet and nutrition into autoimmune disease research.

Closed 12/04/25

Seeking community-derived solutions to reduce menthol cigarette smoking

ODP is sponsoring the Quit & Thrive Challenge: Community-Derived Solutions to Reduce Menthol Cigarette Smoking  to enhance the evidence base of interventions for populations with high levels of menthol cigarette smoking.

closed 09/02/25

Building a large, varied, and highly skilled translational science workforce.

Raise the profile of your education or training opportunity in translational science, and help disseminate effective approaches nationally.

Closed 04/30/25

Entrepreneur Accelerator and Prize Competition for Aging Innovations

This Challenge aims to stimulate aging research and participation in life science entrepreneurship.

Closed 12/09/24