About 81% of NIDCD's research budget goes directly to university-based scientists and clinicians.1 If your audiology or communication sciences program isn't actively pursuing NIDCD training grants, that statistic is worth sitting with for a minute.
Most faculty know NIDCD exists. Fewer know the full range of grant mechanisms available for audiology programs, and even fewer know which ones apply to their program's current stage of development. The T32 is the most recognized mechanism, but it's not the only one. There's also T35 funding specifically designed for AuD students, R25 grants for curriculum development, K01 career development awards for junior faculty, and U01 cooperative agreements for programs running clinical trials.
This post maps the full portfolio of NIDCD training grants for audiology and communication sciences programs, explains what each mechanism actually funds, and shares examples of how real programs have used them.
Why NIDCD Is the Right Funder for Audiology and Communication Sciences Programs
NIDCD's research portfolio covers hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech, and language.1 That scope encompasses virtually everything audiology and SLP programs study and teach. When you're looking for federal training grant support, NIDCD is the logical home for your application.
The 81% university-based figure isn't just a talking point. It reflects where NIH has decided to concentrate its investment in these fields. University programs with active research infrastructure are exactly what NIDCD program officers are looking for when they review applications.
There is one constraint you need to understand clearly before you start writing: NIDCD does not fund clinical service delivery. Grants need to have substantive research, training, or education components. This trips up applicants who frame their proposals around the clinic without connecting clinical activity to a defined research or training aim.
The good news is that this constraint is easier to navigate than it sounds. The standard frame is a clinic-research integration model: your clinical population provides the research participants, and your research findings feed back into how you deliver clinical services. That model works, and it's what NIDCD expects to see. The key is making that connection explicit in your proposal rather than assuming reviewers will infer it.
NIH T32 Audiology Program Grants: The Institutional Training Grant
The T32 Institutional Research Training Grant is the grant most program directors think of when they hear "NIH training grant." And for good reason, it's the largest and most impactful mechanism in the portfolio.
T32 grants fund multi-year research training programs at the institutional level, supporting both predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees. Awards typically run five years and are renewable, with direct cost budgets ranging from roughly $500K to $1.5M+ per year depending on the number of trainees.2 The grant pays trainee stipends, tuition, health insurance, and training-related costs. The institution isn't just administering the funding; it's building and sustaining a defined training environment.
What makes a T32 application competitive? A few things matter most. Your mentorship pool needs to include faculty with active NIH-funded research programs; R01s are the clearest signal, but other R-grants count. Your training curriculum needs defined competencies and a credible plan for tracking trainee career outcomes. And your institution needs to demonstrate commitment: facilities, protected time for training activities, and a track record of supporting research trainees.
Two programs illustrate what long-running T32 success looks like. San Diego State University's T32 (NIH Grant T32 DC007361) trains doctoral students in neurocognitive approaches to communication disorders.3 Indiana University's T32 (NIH 2 T32 DC000012) ran for 36 years, the longest-running T32 in NIDCD's portfolio. Over that time, it supported 72 postdoctoral fellows, 55 predoctoral trainees, and 102 summer medical students, totaling more than 229 trainees.4
That Indiana University track record tells you something important about what NIDCD values in a T32: NIH renews programs that produce researchers, not just graduates. If your trainees are publishing, competing for independent grants, and building academic research careers, your T32 becomes renewable. If they're not, it doesn't.
NIH T35 Grants: Short-Term Research Training for AuD Students
This is the mechanism most AuD program directors don't know about, and it's specifically designed for clinical doctoral students.
The T35 Short-Term Research Training Grant places AuD students in research settings for 8-12 week stints, typically over the summer. Students work in active research labs, gain hands-on experience with research methods, and develop an understanding of the research enterprise that they otherwise wouldn't encounter in a clinically-focused AuD curriculum. Per-trainee stipends run approximately $2,400 per month, and many programs include travel support as well.5
Two programs offer a useful look at how T35 placements work in practice. Vanderbilt University's T35 program places AuD students in research labs with structured mentorship throughout the placement period.6 Boys Town National Research Hospital's T35 program provides $2,399 per month in stipends for AuD students engaged in audiology and hearing science research.5
Why does this matter for AuD program directors? Most AuD training is, by design, clinical. Students come in expecting to become audiologists, and their curricula are built around building clinical competence. But AuD programs also have an obligation to produce graduates who understand research evidence and can evaluate it critically, and some of those graduates will go on to pursue research careers. T35 provides a structured, funded way to give students meaningful research exposure without requiring the entire program to restructure.
If your AuD program has some research infrastructure, or if you're near a research university where you could place students, a T35 application is worth exploring. NIDCD program officers are explicitly encouraged to take pre-submission calls from prospective applicants; reaching out before you write is a real option, not just a polite suggestion.
Other NIDCD Mechanisms for University Programs
T32 and T35 get most of the attention, but there are three other mechanisms worth knowing about, especially if you're thinking about where your program is right now versus where you want it to be.
R25 Research Education Grants fund curriculum development and research training pipeline programs. If you're not yet ready to compete for a T32 (maybe you don't have enough NIH-funded mentors on your faculty, or you're still building your training curriculum), an R25 lets you develop those assets while establishing a funding track record. Programs have used R25 awards to create structured undergraduate research experiences, to develop research training modules within existing AuD curricula, and to fund workshops and summer programs that expose students to communication sciences research.2
K01 Mentored Career Development Awards support early-career AuD and PhD audiologists who are transitioning into independent research. A K01 provides salary support and protected research time during the mentored period, giving junior faculty the runway they need to develop an independent research program and compete for R-grant funding. If you have a newly-hired faculty member with strong clinical or research training who needs time to establish their research identity, the K01 is the mechanism to point them toward.
U01 Cooperative Agreements fund investigator-initiated clinical trials, with direct costs that can reach $700K+ per year.2 This mechanism is for programs that already have established research infrastructure and a specific clinical trial they want to run. It's not where you start. It's where you go after you've built the research environment that makes a large clinical trial feasible.
Together, these mechanisms form a progression. R25 builds the pipeline. T35 brings AuD students into research settings. T32 creates the institutional training program. K01 supports early-career faculty. U01 funds the clinical trials that faculty eventually run. You don't need to apply for all of them at once, and most programs don't. The right starting point depends on where you are right now.
How to Position Your University Clinic for NIDCD Funding
Getting a NIDCD training grant isn't just about writing a strong proposal; it's about building a program that makes a strong proposal possible. That distinction matters.
The clinic-research integration model is where most university audiology programs should start. Your clinic sees real patients with real communication disorders. That patient population is a research resource, provided you have the systems to document clinical encounters systematically, track outcomes over time, and use that data to inform your research questions. NIDCD program officers expect to see this model described explicitly in your application. Not implied, not gestured at. Just described.
What do reviewers look for when they score T32 and T35 applications? Several things carry real weight: mentor qualifications (faculty with active NIH research portfolios, strong publication records, and experience training doctoral students), training environment quality (laboratory facilities, access to clinical populations, institutional support for trainees), the training plan itself (defined competencies, a credible career development sequence, a plan for tracking outcomes after trainees leave the program), and diversity and inclusion in trainee recruitment.2
If you're early in the process, don't underestimate foundation grants as a stepping stone. ASHFoundation Clinical Research Grants and New Century Scholar program awards provide the kind of pilot data and preliminary track record that makes a subsequent NIDCD T32 or R25 application more competitive.7 Getting one of those grants first isn't a concession; it's a strategy.
A few practical notes on the submission side. Applications go through NIH's ASSIST system via Grants.gov. Most T32 and T35 mechanisms follow standard NIH submission dates: January, May, and September, though you should always confirm deadlines in the specific funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for your mechanism.8 And reach out to NIDCD program officials before you submit. They'll tell you whether your proposed program aligns with current funding priorities, and that conversation can save you months of work on a proposal that isn't a fit.
Start Where You Are
There's a version of NIDCD training grant funding that fits almost every university audiology or communication sciences program; it's just not always the same mechanism.
If you're an AuD program director who's never thought about NIH funding, T35 is probably your entry point. If you're a research program director with several NIH-funded mentors and a doctoral training program in place, a T32 application is well within reach. If you're a junior faculty audiologist who needs protected time to build a research career, talk to your department chair about a K01.
The question isn't whether NIDCD training grants are available to programs like yours. Based on the data, they almost certainly are. The question is which one fits where you are right now.
If your university clinic is part of your research training environment, the documentation and reporting infrastructure you use matters. ClinicNote is built for university clinics, with reporting tools that support systematic data collection across your clinical caseload. If you're ready to see how it fits into your program, we'd be glad to walk you through it.
Sources
- https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/about/overview
- https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/funding/types-funding
- https://www.sdsu.edu/news/2022/09/sdsu-awarded-nidcd-training-grant
- https://medicine.iu.edu/audiology/research/training-grants
- https://www.boystownhospital.org/research/training/nih-t35
- https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/hearing-speech/research/research-training/
- https://www.ashfoundation.org/Grants-Awards/
- https://grants.nih.gov/grants/how-to-apply-application-guide/due-dates-and-submission-policies/due-dates.htm