UC San Diego FIRST renewed with $5M

The University of California San Diego said on May 12 that the National Institutes of Health renewed its FIRST program with a $5 million award, restoring federal support to a faculty-recruitment effort that the agency had terminated in early 2025. UC San Diego said the program, formally called Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation, has funded recruitment, mentorship and career development for early-career biomedical researchers since 2022. The university said the program was reinstated later in 2025 after a multi-state lawsuit challenged NIH grant terminations. NIH’s Common Fund website now lists FIRST as an archived program, even as UC San Diego said its campus award has been renewed. ### How much money did UC San Diego receive, and what is it supposed to fund? UC San Diego said the renewal totals $5 million and will continue a cohort-based hiring and training model for biomedical faculty. The university said the award supports recruitment, structured mentorship and professional development designed to help early-career researchers establish independent careers. (today.ucsd.edu) The NIH Common Fund launched FIRST as a national program to help institutions recruit cohorts of faculty and build what the agency called environments of “inclusive excellence” for biomedical and behavioral research. NIH said in a 2020 program announcement that FIRST was expected to fund 12 awards over three years, with an estimated budget of $241 million over nine years, subject to available funds. (today.ucsd.edu) ### What had happened to the program before this renewal? UC San Diego said its FIRST program was terminated by NIH in early 2025 after what local and university reports described as federal funding cuts. The university said the award was later reinstated following a multi-state lawsuit. (nih.gov) Court records and later reporting show the broader litigation covered NIH’s cancellation of grants tied to categories the administration said it would no longer fund. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit described lawsuits brought by several states and by research groups challenging a 2025 NIH policy that barred funding for certain research categories and led to grant terminations. Science reported that one of those cases was brought by 16 Democratic-leaning state attorneys general. (today.ucsd.edu) ### What does UC San Diego say the program has produced so far? UC San Diego said the program has enabled the campus to hire 12 new faculty members across life-sciences fields since 2022. The university said those hires have collectively brought in $16 million in new research grants since arriving. (law.justia.com) JoAnn Trejo, the program’s principal investigator and a pharmacology professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said the program had been “a great success” despite funding disruptions in the last year. John Carethers, vice chancellor for health sciences, said the university’s faculty recruitment strategy depends on drawing from a wide range of experiences and disciplines. (today.ucsd.edu) ### Who is involved in the campus program? JoAnn Trejo leads the UC San Diego FIRST program, according to the university’s release. UC San Diego said faculty involved in the effort span medicine, pharmacy, engineering, biology, physical and social sciences, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. (today.ucsd.edu) The NIH Common Fund said FIRST awardees nationwide were intended to recruit researchers across fields including cancer biology, neuroscience, cardiovascular science, biomedical engineering, clinical psychology and data science. NIH’s archived program page says the site is being maintained for reference and will not be updated regularly. ### Why is NIH still describing FIRST as archived? (today.ucsd.edu) NIH’s Common Fund website says FIRST “is no longer an active Common Fund program” and that its webpage is being maintained as an archive. UC San Diego’s May 12 statement does not say whether the $5 million renewal comes from a continuing national competition, a reinstated campus award, or another mechanism inside NIH. (commonfund.nih.gov) That leaves a narrower verified point: UC San Diego says its campus program has a renewed $5 million NIH award, while NIH’s public Common Fund materials describe FIRST at the national level as archived. Without a new NIH award notice or agency statement, the public record does not yet resolve that apparent mismatch. (commonfund.nih.gov) ### What comes next for the program? UC San Diego said the renewal will allow it to continue supporting the current cohort model for faculty recruitment and development. The university’s May 12 release identifies Trejo as the principal investigator and says the next phase will continue mentorship and early-career support for biomedical faculty on campus. (today.ucsd.edu) NIH’s public grant database and Common Fund archive are the two obvious places to watch for additional detail on the award mechanism, participating investigators and project timeline. As of May 14, NIH’s archived FIRST page remained online and UC San Diego’s announcement remained the most specific public description of the renewal. (reporter.nih.gov) (today.ucsd.edu)