Advancing the Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Clinical Research

People with disabilities are often kept out of clinical research. Sometimes it happens explicitly, through eligibility criteria that exclude them without scientific justification, and sometimes implicitly, through inaccessible study procedures or mistaken assumptions about their ability to consent or participate. That exclusion violates federal regulations and research ethics, weakens how well findings generalize, and keeps people with disabilities from the benefits of taking part, including access to new diagnostics and interventions.

When people with disabilities are included well, the research itself improves. They experience many studied conditions at higher rates than people without disabilities, so their participation produces evidence that better reflects the people new interventions are meant for, and it surfaces safety and efficacy data across real-world variation in function, comorbidity, and concurrent medication use. The accessibility practices that support their participation, such as plain-language consent materials and flexible study procedures, tend to improve comprehension and data quality for every participant, not only disabled ones.

The 2026 NIH Strategic Plan for Disability Health Research, FY26–FY30 names inclusion in research as a crosscutting priority. This Challenge puts that commitment into practice: it looks for exemplary, already-implemented approaches that address the needs of people with disabilities at every stage of a study, from design through the communication of results, developed in partnership with disabled people, their families, and their care partners.

Winning submissions won't just earn a prize. NIH will publicly disseminate them as models for investigators, institutions, sponsors, and institutional review boards across the clinical research enterprise.

NIH anticipates awarding cash prizes of $50,000 each to up to twenty winners, drawn from a total prize purse of $1,000,000. Prizes are paid by electronic funds transfer and may be subject to federal income tax; NIH follows applicable IRS withholding and reporting requirements.

Beyond the cash award, winning resources are amplified and disseminated by NIH for use by researchers and research institutions, creating a national platform for approaches that already work.

Teams are paid in full to their Team Leader, who is responsible for allocating funds among members. Entities are paid directly, not to their Point of Contact. NIH reserves the right to cancel, suspend, or modify the Challenge, or to make no award if no submission is judged worthy.

The Challenge is open to individuals, teams, and entities from academia, industry, nonprofits, professional societies, patient advocacy groups, community organizations, and beyond. To be eligible to win a prize, a participant must:

• Register and submit under the rules published in the official announcement.
• Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident (individuals), or be incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States (entities). Non-U.S. participants may take part as members of an otherwise-eligible team but cannot receive monetary prizes.
• Not be a federal entity or federal employee acting within the scope of employment.
• Not be an HHS employee participating in a personal capacity.
• Not be a judge of the Challenge, involved in running it, or an immediate family member of someone who is.
• Be 18 years of age or older at the time of submission.

During registration, you'll identify whether you're entering as an Individual, a Team (a group competing together, not on behalf of an organization), or an Entity (competing on behalf of a legally established organization). Teams and Entities designate one Team Leader or Point of Contact to register, submit, and handle communication with NIH.

1. 1

   Title & executive summary

   One page introducing the approach.

2. 2

   Description of the approach

   Two to three pages explaining how it advances disability inclusion in clinical research and how it meets the Review Criteria.

3. 3

   Public-facing materials

   No page limit. Best-practice resources, study protocols, standard operating procedures, toolkits, or training materials suitable for NIH to disseminate publicly.

Rolling administrative review

Submissions are reviewed on a rolling basis as they're received during the open submission period. This review is administrative only: NIH confirms that an entry meets the eligibility requirements, that all required fields and materials are complete, and that uploaded materials meet Section 508 accessibility standards. It doesn't assess the quality or merit of a submission and doesn't affect scoring. All merit evaluation happens separately, after the submission period closes, and only complete, eligible submissions advance to the Review Panel.

If a missing item, an eligibility question, or an accessibility issue comes up, NIH will notify the submitter within 5 business days so it can be corrected. Entries can be edited and resubmitted as many times as needed until the deadline; the most recent version is the one that's considered. Anyone who needs an accommodation or assistance completing or correcting a submission can contact disabilityinresearch@floor23digital.com for support.

Registration and submission take place through the Innobear portal, which opens with the Challenge launch on September 28, 2026.