Highlighted Topics are a way for an Institute or Center (IC) to communicate with applicants about an area of increased funding priority. A proposed project’s alignment with one definitely should be called out in key areas of the application.
NIH is a bit unique among federal funders in the United States in that the vast majority of its extramural funding goes out under investigator-initiated Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs), which are not tied to topics. That means applicants must work a little harder to figure out a given Institute and Center’s (IC) funding priorities and to ensure that their proposed project is aligned with them. There are many ways to figure out the funding priorities and ensure project alignment (e.g., Strategic Plans, Annual Reports, conversation with PO) which I describe in detail in my courses. In the past few years, one additional way an IC might communicate interest in a scientific area is through a Notice of Special Interest (NOSI). More recently, NIH seems to be using Highlighted Topics and recently provided guidance on how to use them.
Highlighted Topics seem to function similar to NOSIs. In fact, I have not been able to discern a difference between a NOSI and a Highlighted Topic. You apply to an open NOFO, and in the application you can describe alignment with a Highlighted Topic.
It is always a good idea for a team to describe how their project aligns with an IC’s funding priorities. I believe the most important place to do so is on the Aims page in the narrative overview. It can be a simple sentence: “Our project aligns with the Institute’s funding priorities as described in Highlighted Topic ‘Research on Chatbots and their Usage’.”
Another important place to discuss alignment with IC priorities is in the Significance section of the Research Strategy, where you could discuss the alignment in more detail, if you feel it would be persuasive to do so. Finally, you could briefly mention your project’s alignment with the IC’s priorities anywhere in the narrative where you include an impact statement (e.g., Project Summary, the end of the Approach section of the Research Strategy).
