Deadline: 22 May 2020
The Engagement Award Program is now accepting full proposals for Special Cycle: Supporting Engagement in and Dissemination of PCOR/CER in the Context of COVID-19, a research support—not research—special funding opportunity, for projects up to one year in duration, and up to $150,000 in total costs.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) plans to award up to $21 million in fiscal year 2020 as part of the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Awards. These awards are for research support rather than a research funding opportunity.
The Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Awards support projects that encourage active integration of patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other healthcare stakeholders as integral members of the patient-centered outcomes research/comparative clinical effectiveness research (PCOR/CER) enterprise.
This Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Special Cycle Funding Announcement—Supporting Engagement in and Dissemination of PCOR/CER in the Context of COVID-19—aims to support projects that help communities increase their capacity to participate across all phases of the PCOR/CER process while responding to contextual changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is an opportunity to explore virtual/distanced methods of engagement and generate new questions and evidence needs across stakeholder groups.
Duration
For the Engagement Award Special Cycle: COVID-19, the contract start date should be planned for either July 1, 2020 or August 1, 2020. No other start dates are permitted.
Funding Priorities
- This funding announcement offers an opportunity for organizations and community groups to build capacity/skills for PCOR/CER as well as active dissemination of Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)-funded research results during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Projects of interest will support organizations with strong ties to patients, caregivers, clinicians, and other stakeholders to equip them to engage as partners in PCOR/CER in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic. These projects will focus on identifying and using effective methods of engagement to build the knowledge, competencies, and abilities of their community to be meaningful partners in research from topic selection through design and conduct of research to dissemination or implementation of results in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Supporting Engagement in and Dissemination of PCOR/CER in the Context of COVID-19 mechanisms include, but are not limited to:
- Projects that strengthen the skills of stakeholders to engage in PCOR/CER using thoughtful and creative approaches while following state/federal guidelines of social distancing measures.
- Projects that will capture the emerging research needs, with emphasis on the PCOR/CER needs of frontline and end-user communities facing the COVID-19 pandemic, including, but not limited to, clinicians, policymakers, hospitals, and health systems.
- Projects that equip organizations for ongoing adaptations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Projects that support organizations with strong ties to end-user audiences to lay the groundwork for disseminating and implementing PCOR/CER results. PCORI intends for these projects to focus on strengthening the infrastructure and relationships necessary to actively disseminate and implement research results or products derived from PCORI or related studies.
- Project activities that include developing, demonstrating, and evaluating the processes/pathways/learnings necessary to incorporate PCOR/CER results into decision-making settings while following state/federal guidelines of social distancing measures. They expect that projects selected for an Engagement Award will further PCORI’s goals of promoting the relevance of research to target audiences and the uptake of research results by end users. They are committed to using and sharing successful approaches.
- The information and learnings generated by Engagement Award projects must be generalizable; they must be of interest or use not just to the applicant organizations but to others doing related work. The learnings and information will be made public so they can have a broader impact.
Project Evaluation
- Applicants must include a completed Evaluation Reporting Tool as a deliverable at the end of the project period. The Evaluation Reporting Tool provides a template to collect information about Engagement Awards that can help with evaluation of portfolio, as well as evaluation of individual projects. This reporting tool should be taken into consideration during proposal development and uploaded at the end of the project period with the Final Deliverable Milestone. Awardees may use a different evaluation framework if there is one that is more aligned with their project proposal, subject to PCORI approval. Applicants adopting such an approach must identify the proposed alternate evaluation framework in their application.
- The goal of this reporting tool is to ensure a standard set of reported information for Engagement Awards. Given the difficulty in applying metrics and a standard set of indicators around engagement best practices, this tool provides a baseline of outcomes to report on in Engagement Award projects.
- At a minimum, evaluation plans should document the reach (in absolute numbers) of the engagement effort among the targeted end users and settings.
Submitting a Successful Application
Successful applications will include:
- Rationale for methods of stakeholder engagement to participate in PCOR/CER during the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Commitment from the patient and/or stakeholder communities to be involved in the project and clear patient and/or stakeholder involvement/leadership in all stages of the proposed work.
- The potential impact of the proposed project.
- Evaluation metrics (to be populated in the Evaluation Reporting Tool) for assessing the success of the proposed engagement strategies.
- The organization’s relationship to the population and/or context and track record in engagement.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications may be submitted by any private-sector organization, including any nonprofit or for-profit organization; any public-sector organization, including any university or college hospital or healthcare system; or any unit of local, state, or federal government.
- The Internal Revenue Service must recognize all US applicant organizations.
- Organizations may submit multiple funding applications.
- 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 US healthcare system and US efforts in the area of patient-centered research can be shown clearly.
Review Criteria
- Program Fit
- Project Plan and Timeline
- Qualifications of the Project Lead
- Personnel and Collaborators
- Past Performance
- Budget/Cost Proposal
For more information, visit https://www.pcori.org/funding-opportunities/announcement/engagement-award-special-cycle-covid-19