Deadline: 26-Sep-2024
The EA Program is now accepting LOIs for the Engagement Award: Building Capacity for Small Organizations To Engage in Patient-Centered Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research (CER).
The EA Program helps organizations and stakeholders build their capacity to participate in patient-centered CER. Conversations with stakeholders identified that many small organizations want to build capacity to participate in patient-centered CER and would benefit from learning from each other and receiving technical assistance (TA). The EA Program developed this funding opportunity to address these needs.
This award is exclusively focused on small organizations. It recognizes the unique perspectives and contributions that small organizations can bring to the patient-centered CER process. It is also designed for small organizations that may not have any experience with patient-centered CER.
Purpose
- Projects funded through this opportunity will help your organization build the skills you need to help you and your community be partners with researchers and in research. You must explain an interest in and rationale for your community’s engagement in patient-centered CER.
- By taking part in the program, you and your organization will:
- Learn more about patient-centered CER and skills to engage in patient-centered CER.
- Build your organization’s capacity to participate in patient-centered CER while benefiting from PCORI’s expertise.
- Teach stakeholders about patient-centered CER and the value of taking part in research.
- Find training resources for engaging in patient-centered CER and collaborating with other organizations.
- Create or build sustainable stakeholder partnerships, collaboratives and learning communities.
- Create channels to communicate with stakeholders.
- Identify ideas for future patient-centered CER important to your community.
- Plan and commit to the next steps needed to further your work in patient-centered CER.
- Network with other small organizations that share your interests and experiences.
- Learn from fellow awardees and other experts about how to engage in patient-centered CER.
- Become part of a larger community engaging in patient-centered CER.
Funding Information
- They must be two years long. You may request up to $300,000, including both direct and indirect costs.
- Projects must start on July 1, 2025.
Project Activities
- You will develop and conduct activities tailored for your own community with support from PCORI. You will also join a network of other small organizations that have received this award. More details on this help are described later in this section.
- Some project activities are required. Others are optional. You must decide which methods will work best to carry out these activities in your community.
- Required project activities include the following:
- Create a road map that explains next steps to support your organization’s journey toward engagement in patient-centered CER.
- Evaluate your project.
- Take part in the learning network
- Your organization should create other activities that support your needs. Recommended activities include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Educate and train patients and other stakeholders on the basics of patient-centered CER.
- Consider using PCORI’s Research Fundamentals. This training is free and on demand. It offers ways to learn about the health research process and be involved in patient-centered CER. You may also use other materials and trainings that fit the needs of your community.
- Build a stakeholder partnership or learning community that you can maintain over time. Create a clear mission and structure for the arrangement.
- PCORI’s Building Effective Multi-Stakeholder Research Teams may be a useful resource for you. The website gives ideas about how to engage with multi-stakeholder teams. It addresses two key areas:
- How to make stakeholders, such as patients and the people who care for them, active members of the team.
- How to work with a team of diverse people, such as patients, caregivers, researchers and clinicians.
- PCORI’s Building Effective Multi-Stakeholder Research Teams may be a useful resource for you. The website gives ideas about how to engage with multi-stakeholder teams. It addresses two key areas:
- Ask patients and other stakeholders to help create ideas for future patient-centered CER, such as:
- Capturing views on new patient-centered CER needs.
- Focusing on patient-centered CER topics.
- Creating a research agenda.
- Writing research questions.
- Form an advisory group that includes a range of stakeholders. Ask them to create the operational framework needed to engage in patient-centered CER (such as governance documents).
- Find out which patient-centered outcomes are most important to your patients and other stakeholders.
- Create tools that teach people how to get involved in patient-centered CER. These tools should be geared toward your community. Then encourage people in your community to use the tools and take part in patient-centered CER. Before you develop a new tool, PCORI suggests that you consider using existing engagement tools and resources when you can, rather than develop new ones. These engagement tools and resources from past PCORI-funded awardees can be found in the PCORI Engagement Tool and Resource Repository.
- Educate and train patients and other stakeholders on the basics of patient-centered CER.
- You must show how your proposed project affects your organization’s future work in patient-centered CER.
- The learning your project creates must be useful to others doing the work, not just to your organization.
Eligibility Criteria
- Your organization must be one of the following:
- A private-sector organization, including any nonprofit or for-profit organization.
- A public-sector organization, including any university or college hospital or healthcare system.
- A unit of local, state or federal government.
- The Internal Revenue Service must recognize all U.S. applicant organizations. Organizations may apply through a fiscal sponsor if necessary. The fiscal sponsor must be recognized by the Internal Revenue Service. Individuals are not permitted to apply. Nondomestic components of organizations based in the United States and foreign organizations may apply, as long as there is demonstrable benefit to the U.S. healthcare system, and U.S. efforts in the area of patient-centered research can be shown clearly.
- Your organization must have an average yearly operating budget of $1.5 million or less over the past two fiscal years.
- Your organization may not have received a total of over $125,000 through previous award(s) from the EA Program. If your organization was a subcontractor on an award, the funds your organization received do not count towards this total.
- If you apply for this funding, your organization cannot apply for other Engagement Award funding opportunities in this cycle.
- In addition:
- The project lead and administrative official must each be an employee or board member of your organization.
- Your organization must have the following:
- Relationships with researchers or research networks. You will have to provide Letters of Support from researchers. The letters must include their interest in the project. The letters must be submitted with the full proposal. They cannot be submitted with the LOI.
- Relationships with patients and other stakeholders. These stakeholders must have a connection to, expertise in or lived experience with your focus area. You will have to provide Letters of Support from these individuals or groups. The letters must include their interest in the project. The letters must be submitted with the full proposal. They cannot be submitted with the LOI.
For more information, visit PCORI.
