The National Institutes of Health announced today the 29 inaugural recipients of a new class of grants for the most promising, imaginative scientists who have never before won an NIH research grant.

Recipients of New Innovator Awards will each receive $1.5-million over five years to help them establish their careers. The NIH created the grants this year because of widespread concern that the agency’s flat budget was especially squeezing out young researchers from winning the agency’s grants. The NIH defined “new” investigators as having earned their most-recent doctoral degree or medical residency since 1997. The recipients have already shown great promise because most are are assistant professors at some of the nation’s largest research universities.

Also today, the NIH announced this year’s recipients of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Awards. The grants, begun in 2004, provide $2.5-million over five years to innovative scientists at any career stage. —Jeffrey Brainard