Key Dates

None

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

The NIH Institutes and Centers contributing to the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative intend to promote a new initiative by publishing a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to solicit applications for targeted dissemination and integration of validated BRAIN Initiative tools to investigators at institutions that historically have not been major recipients of NIH support.  

This Notice is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive projects. 

The NOFO is expected to be published in Fall 2024 with an expected application due date in early 2025.

This NOFO will utilize the R34 activity code. Details of the planned NOFO are provided below.

Since 2014, the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative has aimed to accelerate the development and application of innovative neurotechnologies, enabling researchers to produce a new dynamic picture of the brain that reveals how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. It is expected that these advances will ultimately lead to new ways to treat and prevent brain disorders. The NIH BRAIN Initiative recognizes that diverse teams working together and capitalizing on innovative ideas and distinct perspectives outperform homogeneous teams. There are many benefits that flow from a diverse scientific workforce, including: fostering scientific innovation, enhancing global competitiveness, contributing to robust learning environments, improving the quality of the research, advancing the likelihood that underserved populations participate in and benefit from research, and enhancing public trust.

The aim of this NOFO is to expand the impact of BRAIN by dissemination and integration of BRAIN relevant tools to investigators at institutions that historically have received little NIH support. This will be accomplished by awards made to support principal investigators (PIs) at resource-limited institutions (defined as RPG funding <7.5 million TC/year in 4 of the last 7 years), which may include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), and others who identify a BRAIN Initiative-relevant resource/tool which would benefit their line of research and pair with the respective toolmaker to facilitate training and adoption of the desired technology in their laboratory. For this phase of the program, these should be developed, validated BRAIN-Initiative relevant resources ready for broad dissemination, and the focus is supporting collaborations and knowledge transfer as opposed to large capacity building efforts. This NOFO would not support validation of unproven technologies. Potential applicants may wish to consider validated, ready to disseminate resources listed at https://braininitiative.nih.gov/research/dissemination/u24-program .  This program would support investigator-initiated exploratory efforts utilizing validated BRAIN-relevant technology. These studies should be designed to lay the groundwork and establish feasibility and validity for future larger-scale projects using the BRAIN-relevant resource/tool. Travel and training, reagent costs, as well as student participation in the execution, analysis, and reporting of the research would also be supported.  Goals include two-way knowledge transfer between the PI and toolmaker, whereby technology developers provide personalized training and ongoing support, and PIs provide user feedback which could be utilized for minor improvements and optimizations to the resource.

Funding Information

Applications are not being solicited at this time. 

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Natalie Trzcinski
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Email: natalie.trzcinski@nih.gov