Small Business Transition Grant for New Entrepreneurs (R43/R44 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | PAR 24 131

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 24 131

The Small Business Transition Grant for New Entrepreneurs (R43/R44 Clinical Trial Not Allowed), funding opportunity number PAR-24-131, is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant designed to help researchers who are new to entrepreneurship transition into small business-based innovation careers while also advancing health-related research and development. The central idea is to pair two goals in the same award: (1) supporting a small business concern (SBC) to conduct NIH-aligned R and D under the leadership of a Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI), and (2) deliberately building that PD/PI's entrepreneurial capabilities through structured training, mentoring, and career development. In practice, this means the grant is not just paying for experiments, prototypes, or product development work; it is also paying to help a technically strong investigator learn how to operate in a startup or small business environment, develop commercialization skills, and grow into an independent innovation leader.

This opportunity is tailored to investigators who bring strong scientific, technology development, and/or health care delivery experience but have limited entrepreneurial background and limited experience leading independent R and D projects as a small business PI. NIH is signaling that the "best fit" PD/PI is someone with real technical depth and a promising translational idea, who needs hands-on exposure to the business side of turning research into real-world products. The expectation is that, over the course of the award, the PD/PI will expand their entrepreneurial skillset while working within an SBC to mature a technology or product that clearly aligns with NIH's mission to improve health and save lives. Because the announcement explicitly states "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," applicants must propose work that does not meet NIH's definition of a clinical trial; the supported activities should stay on the preclinical, tool, technology, or other non-clinical-trial development track, consistent with the specific NIH rules for what constitutes a clinical trial.

Administratively, this is a discretionary grant program run by NIH, and it sits in a broad health-related funding activity space that also touches education and social services categories in the listing metadata. The posted original closing date is April 5, 2027, and the opportunity was created on April 25, 2024. The notice does not provide an award ceiling or an expected number of awards in the source text you shared, which usually means applicants need to consult the full NOFO and the relevant NIH small business policy guidance (and institute-specific budgets) to understand typical funding levels, project periods, and allowable cost structures.

Eligibility is centered on small business concerns, since the purpose is to support SBCs in employing and developing these new-entrepreneur investigators as PDs/PIs. At the same time, the eligibility listing also includes a wide range of organization types that commonly appear across federal opportunity metadata, such as state and local governments, public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status, and other for-profit organizations, alongside small businesses. In addition, the NOFO calls out specific institution types as "other eligible applicants," including Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISI), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, certain tribal governments (other than federally recognized), eligible federal agencies, and U.S. territories or possessions. Despite that broad list, the small-business focus is the key framing: the award is intended to place and develop the PD/PI in an SBC setting where product-oriented R and D and entrepreneurial training can happen together.

There are also clear geographic and foreign participation limits. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations) are not eligible to apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. However, foreign components (as NIH defines them in the NIH Grants Policy Statement) may be allowed, which typically means a U.S. applicant organization might be able to include certain well-justified foreign activities or collaborations under NIH's rules, even though the applicant itself must be domestic and the project cannot be run through a non-U.S. organizational component. Anyone considering an international collaborator would need to double-check the NOFO and NIH policy definitions to ensure the arrangement fits what NIH permits.

Overall, the grant is best understood as a transition and workforce-development mechanism embedded inside a standard NIH small business R and D award structure. It supports the business in building its innovation capacity while intentionally investing in the PD/PI as an emerging entrepreneur, with the long-term aim of creating sustainable, commercialization-ready health technologies that can move beyond the grant period and ultimately contribute to improved health outcomes.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, environment, food and nutrition, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Small Business Transition Grant for New Entrepreneurs (R43/R44 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.113, 93.121, 93.143, 93.172, 93.173, 93.213, 93.233, 93.262, 93.273, 93.279, 93.350, 93.361, 93.837, 93.838, 93.839, 93.840, 93.846, 93.847, 93.859, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867, 93.879.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-04-25.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2027-04-05.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

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