Fogarty International Center Grants Guide

Looking for Thomas J. Fogarty, the surgeon and inventor, or John E. Fogarty, the congressman? This page covers the NIH center that carries the Fogarty name.

Fogarty is shorthand for the Fogarty International Center (FIC), the part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health that funds and coordinates global health research and research training. Its grants differ from most NIH awards in three ways: the center does not accept unsolicited applications, its programs centre on partnerships with low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and any application involving a foreign institution or a foreign component carries an extra attachment that can get the whole application withdrawn if it is missing. Everything below is as described on the official Fogarty pages on 2026-10-29.

What Fogarty is and who runs it

The Fogarty International Center describes itself under the tagline “Advancing Science for Global Health” and is located on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. Its stated purpose is to advance the NIH mission by supporting global health research: it funds and coordinates research led by U.S. and international investigators, builds partnerships between U.S. and foreign institutions, and trains the next generation of scientists. The official About page lists Dr. Steven Schiff as director.

In practice this means Fogarty is a funder of capacity, not a general-purpose research funder. Its money goes to research and research training that strengthens institutions and investigators in LMICs, usually in partnership with a U.S. institution.

Who is eligible for Fogarty grants

Eligibility is set program by program. The Fogarty programs overview does not state eligibility itself; it directs readers to each program page for status, eligibility, funding announcements and deadlines. Three points hold across the official pages:

Focus on LMICs. Fogarty funds research and research training that builds capacity in low- and middle-income countries.
No direct student grants. Training grants are made to institutions, which then select their trainees. Fogarty does not award training grants directly to students.
No travel-only grants. The center does not provide grants specifically for foreign travel to meetings or conferences.

Individual career awards are a separate track with their own eligibility, for example awards limited to African citizens, to LMIC junior faculty, or to U.S. scientists. These are compared in the table further down.

What Fogarty grants fund

The official programs page groups Fogarty grants into two families. The first is research and research training, which includes:

Bioethics Training, building ethics expertise in LMICs.
Bioinformatics Research Training (H3Africa) and Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa (DS-I Africa), covering genomics and health data science partnerships.
Brain Disorders Research, Global Noncommunicable Diseases and Injury Research, and Chronic, NCDs and Disorders Across the Lifespan (NCD-Lifespan), which supports collaborative research training between U.S. and LMIC institutions.
Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (EEID) and Global Infectious Disease Research Training.
Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth), which funds paired LMIC and U.S. consortia, each led by an LMIC institution partnered with a U.S. institution.
Health Professional Education in Africa programs (HEPI, MEPI Junior Faculty, and the African Association for Health Professions Education and Research).
HIV programs: HIV Research Training, Reducing Stigma to Improve HIV/AIDS Prevention, Treatment and Care in LMICs, and HIV-associated NCD Research at LMIC Institutions.
Mobile Health (mHealth), Tobacco and Health Research and Capacity Building, and Trauma and Injury Research Training.

The second family is career development for individuals, covered in the comparison table below. Programs open and close over time, so the official programs page is the place to confirm which are currently active.

How to apply for Fogarty grants

The most common misunderstanding about Fogarty grants is that you can pitch an idea to the center. The official Apply page states that Fogarty does not accept unsolicited grant applications and that all Fogarty grants are in response to program announcements posted on Grants.gov. The practical sequence is:

Find an open announcement. Watch Grants.gov and the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts for a Fogarty program announcement. Learn how to read one in our guide to the Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Register the organization. The Apply page links separate GSA instructions on SAM.gov for domestic entities and for international entities. See SAM.gov for how the registration fits into the wider grants workflow.
Prepare the application in the NIH system. The page describes NIH ASSIST as a system for preparing, submitting and tracking applications through Grants.gov, available to streamline training and career development applications; see NIH ASSIST. The page points applicants to the NIH Grants Policy Statement, the grant process overview and the FAQs for the rules that sit behind the forms; the page describes the statement as the technical handbook for grants at NIH.
Add the Foreign Justification where it applies. See the next section.
Submit through Grants.gov. Submission goes through Grants.gov to NIH, following the instructions in the specific announcement.

The Foreign Justification requirement

Foreign institutions, and U.S. institutions with a foreign component, must include a “Foreign Justification” statement as part of the application package. The Apply page says this applies regardless of the eligibility requirements stated in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, and that “applications missing the foreign justification attachment are subject to withdrawal prior to review.” For a research administrator this is a pre-submission check item: an application can be fully eligible under its announcement and still be pulled for a missing attachment. For the wider rules on foreign subawards, see NIH foreign subaward requirements.

Typical timeline phases

Dates change with every announcement, so treat these as phases rather than a calendar. Specific deadlines appear only in each announcement.

Announcement phase. A program announcement is posted on Grants.gov and in the NIH Guide.
Registration and preparation. Institutions confirm SAM.gov and NIH system registrations and assemble the application, including the Foreign Justification where required.
Submission. The application is submitted through Grants.gov to NIH by the deadline in the announcement.
Review and award. NIH reviews eligible applications under the process described in the announcement.

Common mistakes

Sending an unsolicited proposal. Fogarty does not accept them; wait for an announcement.
Omitting the Foreign Justification. Missing attachments make an application subject to withdrawal before review.
Applying as an individual student. Training grants go to institutions that select trainees; students look for a funded institutional program instead.
Seeking travel funding. Fogarty does not provide grants specifically for foreign travel to meetings or conferences.
Assuming one set of eligibility rules. Eligibility sits on each program page, not on the overview.

Institutional training grants versus individual career awards

The table separates the two ways Fogarty funds people. Rows describe programs as listed on the official programs page on 2026-10-29; confirm current status and eligibility on each program page.

Program	Track	As described on the official page
NCD-Lifespan	Institutional research training	Collaborative research training between institutions in the U.S. and LMICs
GEOHealth	Institutional research training	Consortia each led by an LMIC institution partnered with a U.S. institution
African Postdoctoral Training Initiative (APTI)	Individual career development	Postdoctoral training for African citizens; two years at an NIH intramural lab, then two years at the home institution in Africa
Emerging Global Leader Award	Individual career development	Research support and protected time for LMIC scientists in junior faculty or research scientist roles at LMIC institutions
International Research Scientist Development Award (IRSDA)	Individual career development	Three to five years of support and protected time for mentored research career development in an LMIC, for U.S. scientists
Global Health Fellows and Scholars (LAUNCH)	Individual training through consortia	One year of mentored global health research training for predoctoral, postdoctoral and pre-professional trainees from the U.S. and LMICs, through seven U.S. university consortia
Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowships in Public Health	Individual fellowship	Offered through a partnership between the Fulbright Program and Fogarty to expand public health and clinical research in resource-limited settings

Other individual options on the page include the Fogarty-IeDEA Mentorship Program, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowships and the Korean Biomedical Scientist Fellowship Program. For how Fogarty career awards relate to the mechanisms NIH uses for domestic investigators, see Career Development (K) Awards and the entry on T32 institutional training grants.

FAQ

What is Fogarty?

Fogarty is the Fogarty International Center at the NIH. It funds and coordinates global health research and research training, with a focus on partnerships between U.S. institutions and institutions in low- and middle-income countries.

Can I apply for a Fogarty grant without an announcement?

No. The official Apply page says Fogarty does not accept unsolicited grant applications, and that all Fogarty grants respond to program announcements posted on Grants.gov.

Do Fogarty grants go to students?

Not directly. Training grants are awarded to institutions, which select the trainees. Students and early-career researchers should look for an institution that holds a Fogarty-funded training program, or for an individual career award for which they meet the stated eligibility.

Does Fogarty fund conference travel?

No. The official pages state that Fogarty does not provide grants specifically for foreign travel to meetings or conferences.

What is the Foreign Justification?

It is a statement that foreign institutions, and U.S. institutions with a foreign component, must include in the application package. Applications missing it are subject to withdrawal prior to review.