It is never too late to start
Source: http://www.nia.nih.gov/research/blog/2015/09/short-term-awards-strategy-these-times
We’re trying something different this year in the face of the intense competition for funding—we are aggressively using the NIH R56 activity code for the first time. This award program provides one or two years of support to allow investigators to collect more data, develop more publications, or conduct any other activity that allows them to respond to comments made in the review….
Source: http://www.nia.nih.gov/research/blog/2015/09/short-term-awards-strategy-these-times
We’re trying something different this year in the face of the intense competition for funding—we are aggressively using the NIH R56 activity code for the first time. This award program provides one or two years of support to allow investigators to collect more data, develop more publications, or conduct any other activity that allows them to respond to comments made in the review….