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Decoding a Federal Award ID


The award identifier (Award ID) is a unique identification number assigned to an award, contract, grant, or cooperative agreement. The Award ID may contain a combination of numbers, letters, or punctuation marks, such as a period (.) or a dash (-).

National Institutes of Health 

NIH award numbers indicate the application type, activity code, institute code, serial number, support year, and suffix if applicable. For example, the award number 1R01CA123456-01A1 indicates:

(1) is the Application Type. This award is a New application, never previously funded. Other common types are 2-Competing Continuations and 5-Non-Competing Continuations.

(R01) is the Activity Code, indicating the award mechanism. This award is a Research Project Grant. Other common codes are R21-Exploratory Research Grant, P01-Research Program Project Grant, and U01-Research Project Cooperative Agreement.

(CA) is the Institute Code, identifying the NIH Institute primarily funding this project. This award is funded by the National Cancer Institute.

(123456) is the Serial Number, providing a unique identifier to the project.

(-01) is the Support Year. This award is in the first year of support.

(A1) is the Suffix. This Suffix indicates the application that received funding was a Resubmission. Another common Suffix term is S1-indicating the first competing supplement on a currently funded project.

Department of Defense

DOD award numbering follows a specific format. If the 9th digit is a 1, the award is a grant, if it is a 2, the award is a cooperative agreement, and if it is a letter, the award is a contract. Letters are used to identify different types of procurement instruments. For example:

W81XWH-18-1-1234 is a grant (1)

W911NF-20-2-1234 is a cooperative agreement (2)

W912D1-21-P-1234 is a purchase order (P)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA grants and cooperative agreements use a standard format that identifies the agency, center, fiscal year, action number, and procurement code. If the award is funded as a cooperative agreement, “A” will be used as the procurement code. Grants (other than training grants) will use “G” as the procurement code, and training grants will use “H”. For example:

NNC21AA01H is the first (AA01) training grant (H) awarded by Glenn Research Center (C) in Fiscal Year 2021 (21)

 Department of Education

Department of Education grants use a standardized format that includes the office designator, numeric suffix of the program, fiscal year, and unique identifier. For example:

P031B201234 is a grant from the Office of Postsecondary Education (P), program numeric suffix (031), from Fiscal Year 2020 (20), with a unique identifier of (1234).

Last Update: 11/27/2023