Got an excuse? The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) wants to hear it. The biomedical funding agency is giving scientists the opportunity to explain lags in productivity in their grant applications.

Rather than a nod to Generation X scientists who grew up watching films like Slacker and Clerks, the policy is intended to help scientists balance their family and personal lives with research, without being penalized on grant applications.

Beginning with grants submitted on 25 May, researchers will have the option to “describe factors such as family care responsibilities, illness, disability, and active duty military service that may have affected your scientific advancement or productivity,” according to the NIH announcement.

On her blog Extramural Nexus, the agency’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research Sally Rockey writes: “The change was implemented based entirely on comments we heard directly from our community—concerns that the existing biosketch could work against applicants when there were unexplained gaps.”

The changes should prove especially useful to female scientists, who often put their careers on pause to start families, note a couple of blogs that have praised the new policy. Nature recently covered a study that makes the case that such sacrifices help explain why women are underrepresented in math-intensive fields.

Image courtesy of NIH