NCATS Opportunity for collaborators at 2 CTSA Hubs: Limited Competition: Exploratory CTSA Collaborative Innovation Awards (R21)

PAR-16-343 is still open, the announcement is soliciting collaborative projects between 2 CTSA Hubs.  Many of us are talking, even collaborating, with partners at CTSA Hubs.  This may be an opportunity to grow the resources behind those efforts.
 
Application Deadlines
July 31, 2017, November 29, 2017, March 29, 2018, July 30, 2018
 
 
The Purpose
The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to support highly innovative, exploratory collaborative research projects in the NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, with the goal of assessing utility and feasibility of proposed innovation(s).
 
Background 
Translating biomedical discoveries into clinical applications is essential to improving human health.  It is also a complex process with high costs and substantial failure rates, which can result in delays of years or decades before improved patient outcomes result from discoveries in biomedical research.  The scientific and operational issues which underlie most translational inefficiency are not specific to a particular disease, discipline, institution, or geographic locale.  Rather, they are systematic issues, which require systematic and generalizable solutions.  Further, every stage of the translational process, from target validation through intervention development to public health benefit assessment, is currently fraught with ineffectiveness and in need of bold, innovative new solutions.  There is therefore a corresponding need for bold and innovative new experimental approaches to identifying such solutions. NCATS' catalysis of the development, demonstration, and dissemination of innovations across the spectrum of translational science will advance its mission to transform the effectiveness of translation of discoveries from the laboratory, clinic, and community into tangible benefits to human health. 
 
The Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) hubs promote advances in translational research and training at participating medical research institutions.  Individual CTSA hubs, and more recently groups of hubs, have developed and demonstrated the utility of innovations that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of many aspects of translational research and training.  The diversity of CTSA hubs, and their multiplicity nationwide, suggest that fostering cross-CTSA innovation development and implementation could transform the nation's translational effectiveness in unprecedented ways.  Despite the recognized need and strong support for collaboration as a concept, effective collaborations and partnerships are relatively rare.  This is due in part because the resources and infrastructure to support them are frequently lacking.  In many cases, a limiting factor in addressing these challenges is ability to quickly evaluate new approaches.
 
Research Objectives
The R21 activity code is intended to encourage new exploratory and developmental research projects. These studies may involve considerable risk but may lead to a breakthrough in a particular area, or to the development of novel techniques, agents, methodologies, models, or applications that could have a major impact on translational science.
 
In view of these considerations, this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will enable collaborative teams of investigators, from at least two different CTSA Institutions, to explore novel, generalizable approaches to important translational science questions, and to assess the utility and feasibility of such approaches.  Collaborations that bring together ideas, theories, methods and approaches from disparate scientific disciplines are particularly encouraged. purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to support highly innovative, exploratory, collaborative research projects in the NCATS’ Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, with the goal of assessing utility and feasibility of proposed innovation(s).