the fy19 defense appropriation provides $10 million (m) to the department of defense orthotics and prosthetics outcomes research program (oporp) to support research that evaluates the comparative effectiveness of orthotic and prosthetic clinical interventions using patient-centric outcomes for service members and veterans who have undergone limb amputation.  as directed by the office of the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, the defense health agency j9, research and development directorate manages the defense health program (dhp) research, development, test, and evaluation (rdt&e) appropriation.  the managing agent for the anticipated program announcements/funding opportunities is the congressionally directed medical research programs (cdmrp) at the u.s. army medical research and materiel command (usamrmc).

fy19 oporp program announcements and general application instructions for the following award mechanisms are posted on the grants.gov website. 

oporp awards are focused on outcomes-based best practices through analysis of the merits of prosthetic and orthotic device options currently available, not on the development of new or the improvement of existing technology.  the intent of the awards is to generate clinically useful evidence that will enhance and optimize patient outcomes.

focus areas:  the oporp will only consider applications that specifically address the critical needs of the orthotics and prosthetics outcomes research community in one or more of the fy19 focus areas.  the oporp will solicit research applications that address at least one of the following fy19 focus areas:

• orthotic or prosthetic device form:  understand patient outcomes through the analysis and characterization of variables related to the form of currently available clinical options such as device size, shape, material, and/or configurations.
• orthotic or prosthetic device fit:  understand patient outcomes related to human-device interface and component connection through the analysis of variables in currently available clinical options that facilitate fit-related metrics such as comfort and/or usability.
• orthotic or prosthetic device function:  understand patient outcomes through the analysis of variables related to currently available device function such as device control, sensors, and passive or active response with respect to activities of daily living and other real-world activities.

https://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/oporp

clinical research award – letter of intent due july 24 2019

independent investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent)

• supports research that evaluates orthotic and/or prosthetic devices using patient-centric outcomes relevant to service members and veterans with limb loss and/or limb impairment
• proposed projects should be designed to provide outcomes data regarding orthotic and/or prosthetic devices and must include the anticipated effect on patient care metrics.
• multidisciplinary collaboration among academia, industry, the dod, the department of veterans affairs (va), and other federal government agencies is highly encouraged.
• applications submitted to the fy19 oporp cra must address one or more of the fy19 oporp focus areas.
• animal studies are not allowed.
• clinical trials are not allowed.
• the fy19 cra offers two funding levels:

funding level 1:

• ·       maximum funding of $350,000 for total costs (direct costs plus indirect costs)
• ·       maximum period of performance is 2 years

funding level 2:

• ·       maximum funding of $1,000,000 for total costs (direct costs plus indirect costs)
• ·       maximum period of performance is 4 years

clinical trial award – letter of intent due july 24, 2019

independent investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent)

• supports rapid implementation of clinical trials with the potential to make significant impacts on improving the health and well-being of service members, veterans, and other individuals living with limb deficit.
• supports clinical trials that evaluate orthotic and/or prosthetic devices using patient-centric outcomes.
• proposed projects should be designed to provide outcomes data regarding orthotic and/or prosthetic devices and must include the anticipated effect on patient care metrics.
• multidisciplinary collaboration among academia, industry, the military services, the va, and other federal government agencies is highly encouraged.
• applications submitted to the fy19 oporp cta must address one or more of the fy19 oporp focus areas.
• preclinical research is not allowed.

the fy19 cta offers two funding levels:

funding level 1:

• ·       maximum funding of $350,000 for total costs (direct costs plus indirect costs)
• ·       maximum period of performance is 2 years

funding level 2:

• ·       maximum funding of $2,000,000 for total costs (direct costs plus indirect costs)
• ·       maximum period of performance is 4 years

a pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic biomedical research application portal (ebrap) at https://ebrap.org prior to the pre-application deadline. all applications must conform to the final program announcements and general application instructions available for electronic downloading from the grants.gov website.  the application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on grants.gov.  a listing of all cdmrp and other usamrmc extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the grants.gov website by performing a basic search using cfda number 12.420. 

for email notification when program announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “email subscriptions” on the ebrap homepage at https://ebrap.org.  for more information about the oporp or other cdmrp-administered programs, please visit the cdmrp website (https://cdmrp.army.mil).

point of contact:

cdmrp help desk 
301-682-5507 
help@ebrap.org

solicitation number: nnh18ztt001n-pt

release date: june 7, 2019

pre-proposal conference: june 25, 2019

step 1 proposals due: july 5, 2019

step 2 proposals due: september 26, 2019

research opportunities in space biology (rosbio) – 2018 “appendix c:  development of microgravity food production: plant watering, volume management, and novel plant research on the international space station”nnh18ztt001n-pt

this space biology appendix to rosbio-2018 represents a collaboration between nasa’s space life and physical science research and applications division (slpsrad) and nasa’s advanced exploration systems (aes). the goal of this collaboration is to solicit research and development (r&d) projects that will lead to the development of a more reliable water and nutrient delivery approach/concept for growing edible pick-and-eat plants for multiple generations in microgravity, that will eventually lead to new hardware.

through this solicitation, nasa seeks proposals for the integrated research and development of:

1) edible plant water and nutrient delivery systems for microgravity spaceflight that will provide sufficiently uniform wetting of the roots, avoid the release of free water, and maintain sufficient aeration and oxygen.

2) edible plant spacing systems that will optimize the use of plant-growing volume in space. 

nasa anticipates accomplishing its goal of procuring the development of a reliable space-ready plant water and nutrient delivery system in three distinct phases. phase-a involves key components and experiments, phase-b includes prototype development and system investigations, and phase-c involves demonstration on the iss.

this appendix is requesting phase-a proposals only for plant water and nutrient delivery systems, and/or plant spacing systems that can be used in a nasa furnished plant chamber, and may be scaled up to the size of a full rack on the iss or future spacecraft. key components for the design should be validated through modeling or performance testing.  preliminary scientific investigations and experiments to validate the system’s successful operation and ability to support future research studies should be included as appropriate. 

a virtual pre-proposal conference is scheduled for june 25^th 2019, and more details will be posted shortly alongside this solicitation on nspires. 

appendix c, which was released on june 7, 2019 can be found at https://tinyurl.com/nnh18ztt001n-pt by opening the nasa research opportunities homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and then linking through the menu listings "solicitations" to "open solicitations."  step-1 (pre) proposals will be due july 5, 2019 at 5 pm eastern time, and invited step-2 full-length proposals will be due september 26, 2019 at 5 pm eastern time. proposals must be submitted electronically by an authorized official of the proposing organization. proposers may use either nspires (http://nspires.nasaprs.com/) or grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov) for step-1 proposal submission.  please see the solicitation for instructions regarding the submission of step-2 proposals.

all categories of u.s. institutions are eligible to submit proposals in response to this appendix. principal investigators (pis) and collaborators may be from universities, federal government laboratories, the private sector, state and local government laboratories and other countries with the exception of china.

this appendix will be a broad agency announcement as specified in far 6.102 (d)(2). all awards resulting from selections of proposals to this appendix will be grants or cooperative agreements.

we are pleased to announce the call for proposals as part of the 6th call of the open research area (ora). the sixth round of ora is based on an agreement among the french national research agency (anr; france), the deutsche forschungsgemeinschaft (dfg; germany), the economic and social research council (esrc; uk) and the social sciences and humanities research council (sshrc; canada). the scheme will provide funding for integrated projects by researchers coming from at least three of the four subscribing countries. there is also a special opportunity for co-operation with projects in japan.

proposals may involve any of the disciplines, thematic areas or approaches eligible for sshrc funding. however, the disciplinary coverage varies according to the involvement of the national agencies. canadian applicants can request up to $135,000 per year for a maximum of $400,000 over two to three years.

esrc is the coordinating agency for this round. all relevant documents for this funding opportunity are available in english on esrc’s website and in frenchupon request. all proposals for this call will be submitted through the esrc’s joint electronic submissions system (je-s). in addition to the call-specific documents available on esrc’s website, researchers affiliated with eligible canadian institutions are also invited to consult sshrc’s website for guidance andadditional information regarding sshrc specific eligibility criteria and terms and conditions for participation.

deadline for the submission of proposals is september 11, 2019, 4:00 p.m. greenwich mean time (11:00 a.m. eastern).

for questions, please contact:

paula popovici
senior program officer
research grants and partnerships division, sshrc
tel.: 613-992-0498 
email: paula.popovici@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca

the career awards for medical scientists (cams) is a highly competitive program that provides $700,000 awards over five years for physician-scientists, who are committed to an academic career, to bridge advanced postdoctoral/fellowship training and the early years of faculty service

the fy19 defense appropriation provides $20 million (m) to the department of defense kidney cancer research program (kcrp) to support research of exceptional scientific merit in the area of kidney cancer.  as directed by the office of the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, the defense health agency j9, research and development directorate manages the defense health program (dhp) research, development, test, and evaluation (rdt&e) appropriation. the managing agent for the anticipated program announcements/funding opportunities is the congressionally directed medical research programs (cdmrp) at the u.s. army medical research and materiel command (usamrmc).

fy19 kcrp program announcements and general application instructions for the following award mechanisms are e posted on the grants.gov website.

https://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/kcrp

concept award – letter of intent due september 17, 2019

all investigators at or above the level of postdoctoral fellow (or equivalent) are eligible.

• ·         supports highly innovative, untested, potentially groundbreaking concepts in kidney cancer
• ·         emphasis on innovation
• ·         clinical trials not allowed
• ·         preliminary data not allowed
• ·         blinded review
• ·         maximum funding of $75,000 for direct costs (plus indirect costs)
• ·         maximum period of performance 1 year
• ·         indirect costs may be proposed in accordance with the institution’s negotiated rate agreement

idea development award – letter of intent due september 17, 2019

established investigators: 

independent investigators at or above the level of assistant professor (or equivalent) and 10 years or more from a terminal degree; or

early career investigators:

investigators at the level of assistant professor, instructor, or assistant research professor (or equivalent) and less than 10 years from a terminal degree (excluding time spent in medical residency or family medical leave) at the time of application submission deadline are eligible

• ·        supports new ideas that represent innovative, high-risk/high-gain approaches to kidney cancer research, and have the potential to make an important contribution to kidney cancer
• ·        preliminary data required
• ·        innovation and impact are the most important review criteria
• ·        clinical trials not allowed
• ·         fy19 kcrp areas of emphasis strongly encouraged
• ·         maximum funding of $400,000 in direct costs (plus indirect costs)
• ·         maximum period of performance 2 years
• ·         indirect costs may be proposed in accordance with the institution’s negotiated rate agreement

translational research partnership award – letter of intent due september 17, 2019

the initiating pi must be at or above the level of assistant professor or equivalent.

the partnering pi must be at or above the level of assistant professor or equivalent.

postdoctoral fellows are not eligible to be partnering pis.

• ·       supports partnerships between clinicians and laboratory scientists that accelerate ideas in kidney cancer into clinical applications
  • ·      supports translational correlative studies
  • ·       preliminary data required
  • ·       clinical trials not allowed
    • ·      maximum funding of $600,000 for direct costs (plus indirect costs)
    • ·       maximum period of performance 3 years
    • ·       indirect costs may be proposed in accordance with the institution’s negotiated rate agreement.

a pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic biomedical research application portal (ebrap) at https://ebrap.org prior to the pre-application deadline.  all applications must conform to the final program announcements and general application instructions that will be available for electronic downloading from the grants.gov website.  the application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on grants.gov.  a listing of all cdmrp and other usamrmc extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the grants.gov website by performing a basic search using cfda number 12.420. 

for email notification when program announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “email subscriptions” on the ebrap homepage at https://ebrap.org.  for more information about the kcrp or other cdmrp-administered programs, please visit the cdmrp website (https://cdmrp.army.mil).

point of contact:

cdmrp help desk

301-682-5507 
help@ebrap.org

the fy19 defense appropriation provides $12 million (m) to the department of defense reconstructive transplant research program (rtrp) to support research projects that specifically address needs in the field of vascularized composite allotransplantation (vca).  as directed by the office of the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, the defense health agency j9, research and development directorate manages the defense health program (dhp) research, development, test, and evaluation (rdt&e) appropriation.  the managing agent for the anticipated program announcements/funding opportunities is the congressionally directed medical research programs (cdmrp) at the u.s. army medical research and materiel command (usamrmc).

fy19 rtrp program announcements and general application instructions for the following award mechanisms are posted on the grants.gov website.

focus areas:  to meet the intent of the fy19 rtrp idea discovery award and investigator-initiated research award mechanisms, applicants must address at least one of the fy19 rtrp focus areas listed below:

• ·         reduce the risks of vca-associated immunosuppression
  • o    define the unique mechanisms of vca immunogenicity
  • o    develop novel approaches for improving vca immune tolerance
  • o    identify unique immunosuppression requirements for vca compared to other solid organ transplants
• ·         develop reliable non-invasive methods or tools for monitoring vca graft rejection
  • o    develop reliable non-invasive biomarkers for monitoring chronic vca graft rejection in a large animal model
  • o    identify and/or validate new peripheral biomarkers for acute and chronic rejection
  • o    develop assays or devices for clinical graft monitoring utilizing validated biomarkers
• ·         advance existing or develop innovative ex vivo tissue preservation strategies to extend the timeline between procurement and transplantation
  • o    develop novel approaches and models for perfused, hypothermic, high subzero and low subzero, or static preservation strategies
  • o    determine the extent to which vca tissue preservation technology impacts vca immunogenicity

https://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/rtrp

idea discovery award – preapplication due july 17, 2019

investigators at or above the level of postdoctoral fellow (or equivalent)

• ·         supports innovative, untested, high-risk/potentially high-reward concepts, theories, paradigms, and/or methods.
• ·         innovation is the most important review criterion.
• ·         project should include a well-formulated testable hypothesis based on strong scientific rationale and study design.
• ·         preliminary or published data that supports the rationale are strongly encouraged.
• ·         preproposal is required; full application submission is by invitation only.
• ·         applications must address at least one of the fy19 rtrp focus areas.
  • o    reduce the risks of vca-associated immunosuppression
  • o    develop reliable non-invasive methods or tools for monitoring vca graft rejection
  • o    advance existing or develop innovative ex vivo tissue preservation strategies to extend the timeline between procurement and transplantation
  • ·       maximum funding of $500,000 for total costs (direct plus indirect costs).
  • ·       maximum period of performance is 2 years.

investigator-initiated research award – preproposal due july 17, 2019

independent investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent)

• ·         supports studies with the potential to make an important contribution to the reconstructive transplant research field, patient care, and/or quality of life.
• ·         preproposal is required; full application submission is by invitation only.
• ·         preliminary or published data are required.
• ·         multiple pi option supports synergistic partnerships among two to four investigators collaborating on a single application; multi-institutional collaborations are encouraged.
• ·         applications must address at least one of the fy19 rtrp focus areas.
  • o    reduce the risks of vca-associated immunosuppression
  • o    develop reliable non-invasive methods or tools for monitoring vca graft rejection
  • o    advance existing or develop innovative ex vivo tissue preservation strategies to extend te timeline between procurement and transplantation

individual pis:

• ·       maximum funding of $1 million (m) for total costs (direct plus indirect costs).
• ·       maximum period of performance is 3 years.

multiple pi option:

• ·       maximum funding of $1.5m for total costs (direct plus indirect costs).
• ·       maximum period of performance is 3 years.

a pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic biomedical research application portal (ebrap) at https://ebrap.org prior to the pre-application deadline.  all applications must conform to the final program announcements and general application instructions available for electronic downloading from the grants.gov website.  the application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on grants.gov.  a listing of all cdmrp and other usamrmc extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the grants.gov website by performing a basic search using cfda number 12.420. 

for email notification when program announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “email subscriptions” on the ebrap homepage at https://ebrap.org.  for more information about the rtrp or other cdmrp-administered programs, please visit the cdmrp website (https://cdmrp.army.mil).

point of contact:

cdmrp help desk 
301-682-5507 
help@ebrap.rog

the social development partnership program – disability (sdpp-d) component supports projects intended to improve the participation and integration of persons with disabilities in all aspects of their life.

we are accepting applications from organizations interested in receiving up to $150,000 per year in contribution funding from the sdpp-d for projects that are up to 36 months in duration.

this process is intended to encourage experimentation of innovative approaches to improving the financial security of working-age canadians with disabilities living in or near poverty. funding will be provided to organizations to test new approaches, to assess what works and what does not and to share those findings with others who may be able to learn.