NIH announces new initiative to prioritize human-based research technologies
2025-04-30
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have announced the intention to establish an Office of Research Innovation, Validation, and Application (ORIVA) within NIH’s Office of the Director. The new office will coordinate NIH-wide efforts to develop, validate, and scale the use of non-animal approaches across the agency’s biomedical research portfolio and serve as a hub for interagency coordination and regulatory translation for public health protection.
ORIVA will expand funding and training in non-animal approaches and awareness of their value in translational success. New funding opportunities will include evaluation criteria that assess methods based on their suitability for the research question, context of use, translatability, and human relevance. Infrastructure for non-animal approaches will also be expanded to make these methods more accessible to researchers.
In addition, grant review staff will participate in mitigation training to address any possible bias towards animal studies and integrate experts on alternative methods into study sections. NIH will also publicly report on research spending annually to measure progress toward reduction of funding for animal studies and an increase in funding for human-based approaches.
