When an NIH application names more than one Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI), NIH requires a Multiple PD/PI Leadership Plan as part of the application package. Reviewers factor the plan into the overall scientific merit assessment, alongside the qualifications of each named PI — it is not a pro forma administrative attachment. This guide covers when the Multiple PD/PI (MPI) option applies, what the Leadership Plan must address, how the Contact PI role works, and how an MPI application differs from the traditional single-PI model.
What Is NIH’s Multiple PD/PI Model?
NIH established the Multiple Principal Investigator option through NOT-OD-07-017, published November 20, 2006, following a 2006 pilot phase. Beginning with applications submitted for the February 2007 receipt dates, NIH allowed institutions to designate more than one PD/PI on eligible applications submitted through Grants.gov using the SF424 (R&R) package. The stated purpose was to accommodate genuine team-science projects — collaborations among investigators with distinct, complementary expertise — where forcing a single hierarchical PI structure would misrepresent how the science was actually going to be led. NIH has been explicit that the MPI model is meant to supplement, not replace, the traditional single-PI model: applicants choose it because the project genuinely calls for shared leadership, not because it looks favorable to reviewers.
When Is a Leadership Plan Required?
Any time an application names two or more PD/PIs, NIH requires a Multiple PD/PI Leadership Plan as a required attachment. There is no MPI-specific funding mechanism to apply to — applicants choose the MPI option within an otherwise-eligible funding opportunity announcement (FOA) rather than applying to a separate program. If an application names only one PD/PI, no Leadership Plan is needed; the single PI simply carries full responsibility for the project in the conventional way.
Not every NIH mechanism permits the MPI option. Individual career development (K-series) awards and individual fellowships (F-series) are structured around supporting one investigator’s career trajectory or training and are generally not eligible for multiple PIs; always confirm eligibility against the specific funding opportunity announcement and the current NIH Grants Policy Statement rather than assuming a mechanism qualifies. See CASRAI’s guide to the NIH Parent R01 for how the standard R01 mechanism, one of the most common MPI-eligible award types, is structured.
What the Leadership Plan Must Address
NIH guidance and institutional sponsored-programs offices consistently describe the same core content requirements for the Leadership Plan. At minimum, it should address:
- Rationale for the MPI approach — why the project genuinely requires shared leadership rather than a single PI with co-investigators, tied to the specific expertise each PD/PI contributes.
- Roles and responsibilities of each PD/PI — who leads which scientific aims, technical domains, or project components, stated specifically enough that a reviewer can see the division of labor is real rather than nominal.
- Governance and organizational structure — how the leadership team is organized, including any hierarchy, committee structure, or reporting relationships among the PD/PIs and their teams.
- Communication and scientific decision-making processes — how the PD/PIs will coordinate on scientific direction, how often, and through what mechanism (regular meetings, shared data/lab management systems, etc.).
- Conflict-resolution procedures — how disagreements over scientific direction, resource use, or authorship will be resolved if the PD/PIs cannot reach consensus on their own.
Institutional sponsored-programs offices also routinely advise addressing resource and budget allocation among the PD/PIs — how funds, personnel effort, and shared resources (equipment, core facility access, trainee supervision) will be divided or shared across the participating labs or units — even where it is not always broken out as a separately labeled sixth element. Because this can involve subawards or budgets split across departments or institutions, coordinate the Leadership Plan’s resource-allocation language directly with whoever is building the application budget.
NIH’s own guidance does not appear to prescribe a fixed page limit for the Leadership Plan attachment; treat it as a required narrative that should be complete but concise (commonly one to two pages in practice), and confirm against the specific FOA and your institution’s own submission checklist, since some FOAs or institutional templates do set their own expectations.
The Contact PI Role
Every MPI application must designate one PD/PI as the Contact PI. The Contact PI is NIH’s single point of contact for the award — the person to whom official correspondence, including summary statements and award notices, is directed — but this is an administrative point-of-contact designation, not a statement that the Contact PI has greater scientific authority than the other PD/PIs. All named PD/PIs on an MPI award share responsibility and accountability for the proper conduct of the project, including its scientific direction and required reporting, to the grantee organization. The Leadership Plan should make clear that authority is genuinely shared even though only one PI is designated Contact PI for administrative routing purposes.
How an MPI Application Differs From a Single-PI Application
Beyond the added Leadership Plan attachment itself, an MPI application differs from a single-PI submission in a few concrete ways worth planning for:
- Each PD/PI is a full PI of record, not a co-investigator or key personnel — each typically needs their own complete biosketch and Other Support documentation, and each institution involved (if the PD/PIs span institutions) participates as a full participating organization rather than a subaward-only relationship, though the exact administrative structure depends on the FOA and institutional arrangement.
- Review criteria explicitly include leadership-team assessment. Reviewers are asked to weigh the organizational structure and governance of the PD/PI team, and the knowledge, skills, and experience of each individual PD/PI, as part of the overall scientific merit score — not as a separate compliance checkbox.
- Post-award changes to the PD/PI team require prior NIH approval. Adding, removing, or changing the Contact PI designation after award is a significant change requiring grantee notification and, in most cases, NIH prior approval, unlike day-to-day project management decisions a single PI can make unilaterally.
- Effort and budget documentation is distributed across PIs rather than concentrated in one person’s effort certification, which has downstream implications for time-and-effort reporting and audit documentation — see CASRAI’s guide to faculty effort allocation across multiple grants for how this is typically tracked.
The distinction between a genuine co-PI relationship and the more common co-investigator role is also worth confirming before drafting the Leadership Plan — see CASRAI’s Co-Investigator vs. Co-PI comparison for how the two roles differ in authority, accountability, and NIH’s own treatment of each.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- Treating the Leadership Plan as boilerplate. A generic plan that could apply to any team reads as exactly that to reviewers, and undermines the stated rationale for choosing the MPI model in the first place.
- Leaving conflict resolution vague. “The PIs will discuss and resolve any disagreements” does not describe an actual process; name a mechanism (e.g., a defined escalation step, a tie-breaking role, or referral to a departmental or institutional official).
- Not coordinating with the budget. A Leadership Plan describing shared resource allocation that the submitted budget does not actually reflect is an internal inconsistency reviewers and grants management staff can both catch.
- Assuming every mechanism allows it. Confirm MPI eligibility against the specific FOA before building an application around a multi-PI structure; some mechanisms, particularly individual career and training awards, do not support it.
- Missing the post-award change requirement. Institutions that treat the Contact PI designation as freely changeable after award risk a compliance finding; route any change through the institution’s sponsored-programs office and NIH prior-approval process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does every NIH grant with more than one investigator need a Leadership Plan?
Only if more than one person is formally named as PD/PI. A single PI with multiple co-investigators or key personnel does not trigger the MPI Leadership Plan requirement — only applications that name multiple PDs/PIs do.
Can K awards or individual fellowships use the Multiple PI option?
Generally, no. Career development (K-series) awards and individual fellowships (F-series) are built around supporting a single investigator’s career development or training and are typically not eligible for the MPI option; confirm against the specific funding opportunity announcement rather than assuming.
Is the Contact PI the "lead" PI with more authority?
No. Contact PI is an administrative designation for NIH correspondence and routing. All named PD/PIs share responsibility and accountability for the project’s scientific and administrative conduct; the Leadership Plan should reflect genuinely shared authority.
Can the Contact PI or PD/PI team change after an award is made?
Changes to the PD/PI team, including the Contact PI designation, are considered significant changes that require grantee notification and generally NIH prior approval — they are not made unilaterally mid-project.
Is the Leadership Plan scored separately from the rest of the application?
It is not scored as a standalone criterion with its own numeric score, but the organizational structure and governance it describes, along with the qualifications of each PD/PI, are explicitly factored into reviewers’ overall scientific merit assessment of the application.
For related terminology, see CASRAI’s Co-Investigator dictionary entry and the broader Grants Management pillar page for pre-award proposal development resources.
