Deadline: 17-Nov-23
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is inviting applications to provide Sustained Support for Informatics Technologies for Cancer Research and Management.
Purpose
- The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to invite Cooperative Agreement (U24) applications for the continued development and sustainment of high value informatics research resources to improve the acquisition, management, analysis, and dissemination of data and knowledge across the cancer research continuum including cancer biology, cancer treatment and diagnosis, early cancer detection, risk assessment and prevention, cancer control and epidemiology, and/or cancer health disparities. As a component of the NCI's Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) Program, this FOA focuses on sustaining operations and improving the user experience and availability of existing, widely-adopted informatics tools and resources.
- This is in contrast to early-stage and advanced development efforts to generate these tools and resources that are supported by companion ITCR FOAs. The central mission of ITCR is to promote research-driven informatics technology across the development lifecycle to address priority needs in cancer research. In order to be successful, the proposed sustainment plan must provide clear justification for why the research resource should be maintained and how it has benefited and will continue to benefit the cancer research field. In addition, mechanisms for assessing and maximizing the value of the resource to researchers and supporting collaboration and deep engagement between the resource and the targeted research community should be described.
Objectives
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This FOA invites applications to support the sustained operations of informatics technology resources that support a wide range of cancer research, including discovery biology, population studies, as well as clinical and translational research. The emphasis will be on sustaining resources that have had a demonstrated impact on cancer research. In addition, all projects proposed in response to this FOA must involve the following general attributes:
- Evidence that the technology has had significant impact on cancer research to date and the sustainment plan will lead to the continued advancement of cancer research
- Robust plans for supporting the end-user community including documentation, training, and other outreach activities
- Clear processes for engaging end users to address emerging needs of the targeted research communities to ensure that the research resource maintains relevance to the research it supports
- Recipients will be expected to participate in additional collaborative research activities identified post-award, to enhance the utility and/or interoperability of the informatics technology being supported through the award. These expansion activities are intended to further the impact of the technology that is the subject of the award and may include collaborations with other ITCR awardees or with investigators outside of ITCR. Proposals for these expanded collaborative activities will be evaluated by processes established by the ITCR Steering Committee.
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Examples include, but are not limited to:
- Extension or adaptation of a tool to support the needs of a cancer research project
- Implementation of common Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to support data exchange among tools
- Use of a common software platform/interoperability infrastructure for tool integration
Scope
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Some examples of informatics technologies that may be appropriate for this FOA include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Data acquisition software, such as for laboratory equipment, wearable devices, and questionnaires
- Data mining, visualization, and analytics tools and platforms
- Data processing methods such as data compression, data provenance, and data wrangling
- Data integration and workflow tools and platforms
- Development of data standards, data exchange formats, data quality assurance methods, and data privacy management tools
- Performance evaluation of software tools, algorithms, and data collection methods
- Statistical methods, graph and network theory approaches, and machine learning methods
- Natural language processing and text mining approaches
- Clinical decision support and treatment planning tools
- Technology to support next-generation clinical trials and clinical trial matching
- Behavioral intervention tools
- Platforms for research collaboration and algorithm performance evaluation
- Environments for interactive modeling and simulation
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Examples of activities appropriate to the sustained operations of informatics technology in support of research include:
- Community outreach and engagement
- User training
- User help desk support, including mailing lists, forums, etc., as appropriate
- Hosting tools in conjunction with relevant data sets and supporting collaborative/shared analysis
- Establishing interoperability with other research resources
- Implementing new resource functionality in support of evolving user needs
- General maintenance, including bug fixing and technical upgrades of the underlying software and infrastructure
- Improving the stability, security and/or performance of the informatics tools
- Providing software installation support for locally-hosted instances
- Support for open source development (i.e., accepting external contributions of source code)
- Applications in support of informatics technologies that address under-represented areas in the program portfolio are of particular interest.
Funding Information
- NCI intends to fund an estimate of 1 award, corresponding to a total of $1,130,000, for fiscal year 2024.
- Award Budget: Application budgets are not limited but need to reflect the actual needs of the proposed project.
- The maximum project period is five years.
Eligibility Criteria
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Higher Education Institutions
- Public/State Controlled Institutions of Higher Education
- Private Institutions of Higher Education
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The following types of Higher Education Institutions are always encouraged to apply for NIH support as Public or Private Institutions of Higher Education:
- Hispanic-serving Institutions
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
- Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs)
- Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions
- Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)
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Nonprofits Other Than Institutions of Higher Education
- Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
- Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
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For-Profit Organizations
- Small Businesses
- For-Profit Organizations (Other than Small Businesses)
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Local Governments
- State Governments
- County Governments
- City or Township Governments
- Special District Governments
- Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Federally Recognized)
- Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Other than Federally Recognized)
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Federal Governments
- Eligible Agencies of the Federal Government
- U.S. Territory or Possession
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Other
- Independent School Districts
- Public Housing Authorities/Indian Housing Authorities
- Native American Tribal Organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Faith-based or Community-based Organizations
- Regional Organizations
- Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions)
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Foreign Institutions
- Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are eligible to apply.
- Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are eligible to apply.
- Foreign components, are allowed.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.