American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research (RFA-OD-09-003)
OBSSR
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009. It is an unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century. The Act is an extraordinary response to a crisis unlike any since the Great Depression, and includes measures to modernize our nation's infrastructure, enhance energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need.
NIH has received new funds for Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010 as part of the Recovery Act, Pub. L. No. 111-5. The NIH has designated at least $200 million in FYs 2009 – 2010 for a new initiative called the NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research.
This new program will support research on topic areas that address specific scientific and health research challenges in biomedical and behavioral research that would benefit from significant 2-year jumpstart funds.
The NIH has identified a range of Challenge Areas that focus on specific knowledge gaps, scientific opportunities, new technologies, data generation, or research methods that would benefit from an influx of funds to quickly advance the area in significant ways. Each NIH Institute, Center, and Office has selected specific Challenge Topics within the broad Challenge Areas related to its mission. The research in these Challenge Areas should have a high impact in biomedical or behavioral science and/or public health.
NIH anticipates funding 200 or more grants, each of up to $1 million in total costs, pending the number and quality of applications and availability of funds. In addition, Recovery Act funds allocated to NIH specifically for comparative effectiveness research (CER) may be available to support additional grants. Projects receiving these funds will need to meet this definition of CER: “a rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Such a study may compare similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or it may analyze very different approaches, such as surgery and drug therapy.” Such research may include the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data as they apply to CER.
The application due date is April 27, 2009.
Note: Those marked with an asterisk (*) are high-priority topics developed by OBSSR; however, there are many additional Challenge Grant topics of interest to the behavioral and social sciences research community. We encourage you to look through the full list of Challenge Grant topics found in the Omnibus.
For OBSSR, the Challenge Topics are:
| Broad Challenge Area |
Specific Challenge Topic |
(01) Behavior, Behavioral Change, and Prevention |
01-OD(OBSSR)-101* Tools for studying cultural phenomena.
Development of new tools for: the measurement of culturally-shared mental phenomena (e.g., representations, scripts, prejudices); studying mechanisms by which these phenomena are transferred and adapted across individuals; and advancing research on the distribution and transmission of cultural phenomena within populations.
OBSSR Contact: Christine Bachrach, 301-402-1148, cbachrach@nih.gov
Participating Institutes and Centers: NCI, NHLBI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAMS, NIDCR, NIDA, NIMH, NINR, NCCAM, FIC |
| |
01-OD(OBSSR)-102* Methods for studying the interactions among behaviors, environments, and genetic/epigenetic processes.
Research is needed to develop analytic methods, systems science approaches, or computational models designed to address the interactions among individual behaviors, social and physical environments and genetic/epigenetic processes during critical developmental periods and over time. This research is essential to incorporating the dynamic complexity of behavior and environments in the study of gene-environment interactions in health.
OBSSR Contact: Kay Wanke, 301-435-3718, wankek@od.nih.gov
Participating Institutes and Centers: NCI, NEI, NHGRI, NHLBI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NIAMS, NICHD, NIDCR, NIDDK, NIDA, NIEHS, NIGMS, NIMH, NINR, NCCAM |
(02) Bioethics |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (03) Biomarker Discovery and Validation |
03-OD(OBSSR)-101* Developing high-throughput biomarker assays from finger-stick dried blood spots.
Develop, using finger-stick dried blood spots, novel high-throughput biomarker assays, to identify lipids, proteins, metabolites, and genetic information to expand the array of available biomarkers for use in large community-based biosocial surveys.
OBSSR Contact: Kay Wanke, 301-435-3718, wankek@od.nih.gov
Participating Institutes and Centers: NCI, NHGRI, NHLBI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NIAMS, NIBIB, NICHD, NIDDK, NIDA, NIEHS, NIMH, NINDS, NINR, NCCAM |
| (04) Clinical Research |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (05) Comparative Effectiveness Research |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (06) Enabling Technologies |
06-OD(OBSSR)-101* Using new technologies to improve or measure adherence. New and innovative technologies to improve and/or measure patient adherence to prescribed medical regimens and utilization of adherence-enhancing strategies in clinical practice would greatly enhance the health impact of efficacious treatments and preventive regimens. This challenge invites the development of new technologies to measure or improve patient adherence.
OBSSR Contact: Lynn Bosco, 301-451-4286, boscol@od.nih.gov
Participating Institutes and Centers: NCI, NEI, NHLBI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NIAMS, NIBIB, NICHD, NIDCR, NIDDK, NIDA, NINDS, NINR, NCCAM, FIC |
| (07) Enhancing Clinical Trials |
07-OD(OBSSR)-101* Improving and/or assessing external validity in randomized clinical trials (RCTs). The practice of conducting RCTs with volunteer samples recruited from patients in clinical or community settings limits the generalizability of results, a critical problem for comparative effectiveness research. Research is needed to develop scientific tools for improving and/or assessing the external validity of RCT results to known populations, including methods for applying probability sampling in the identification and recruitment of RCT participants, measuring biases in RCT participant pools, and accounting for such biases in the analysis of RCT results.
OBSSR Contact: Dr. Ronald Abeles, 301-496-7859, abelesr@od.nih.gov
Participating Institutes and Centers: NCI, NEI, NHLBI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NIAMS, NIDCR, NIDDK, NIDA, NIMH, NINDS, NINR, NCCAM |
| (08)Genomics |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
(09) Health Disparities |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (10) Information Technology for Processing Health Care Data |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
(11)Regenerative Medicine |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (12) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education (STEM) |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (13) Smart Biomaterials - Theranostics |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (14) Stem Cells |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
| (15) Translational Science |
For this RFA, there is no OD(OBSSR)-specific Challenge Topic in this Challenge Area. |
For general information on OBSSR’s implementation of NIH Challenge Grants, contact:
Deborah H. Olster, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
National Institutes of Health
301-402-1147
olsterd@od.nih.gov
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