Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A PI submits an RPPR for year 2 of an R01, and NIH issues the year-2 continuation award.
- Is an instance
Horizon Europe releases the second pre-financing tranche after the first periodic report is approved.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A competing renewal is a new competitive application, not a continuation.
- Not an instance
Termination of an award after one year is the opposite of continuation.
Editorial commentary
A continuation award is the mechanism by which funding for each successive budget period of an already-approved multi-year project is released, without the recipient having to compete again or undergo new scientific peer review. It is the routine, expected path a multi-year award takes from one budget year to the next — not a separate opportunity the recipient applies for.
Continuation vs. competing renewal: the real distinction
NIH’s own application-type taxonomy makes the distinction concrete. A Type 5 application is the non-competing continuation — the routine annual progress-report year within an already-awarded competitive segment, supported by the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR), not peer-reviewed, and not in competition with anything. A Type 2 application is a competing renewal — a request for support beyond the current award’s project period that must be fully developed and peer-reviewed as though it were a new application, competing for funding alongside genuinely new (Type 1) applications. Continuation keeps an existing project period moving forward; renewal starts a new competitive segment once the current one ends.
What triggers release
For NIH awards, a continuation award follows administrative review of the RPPR for the prior budget period, not scientific re-review — programme staff confirm the report is complete and progress is consistent with the approved plan, then release the next period’s funds. A late or incomplete progress report is one of the most common reasons a continuation is delayed.
What a continuation cannot do
Because it carries no new peer review, a continuation award cannot fund genuinely new science outside the project’s already-approved scope, add or remove a principal investigator, or extend the award past its approved project period — any of those requires either a formal change request or, for entirely new activity, a competing application or administrative supplement.
Outside US federal funding
Horizon Europe’s structural equivalent is the release of successive pre-financing payment tranches once each periodic report is reviewed and accepted by the Project Officer, rather than a separately labelled “continuation” mechanism — the underlying logic (non-competitive, report-gated release of the next instalment) is the same.
Also known as
Non-competing continuation · Continuing award · Annual continuation
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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