Key Dates

Related Announcements

• April 15, 2024 - Notice Announcing Research Opportunity Announcement for the Advancing Health Research through Ethical, Multimodal AI Initiative. See Notice NOT-OD-24-095. 

Issued by

Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS)

Purpose

This notice informs applicants of a change to “Research Opportunity Title:  Advancing Health Research through Ethical, Multimodal AI”. The following changes have been made:

• Correction was made to NOTICE NUMBER: Updated the notice number from OTA-24-095 to OTA-24-015 to match the Notice Number in ASSIST.
• Clarification made to 2.1 Eligibility regarding Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC)  
• Clarifications made to 2.3 Applications regarding page limits and format guidance
• Clarifications made to 2.3.1 Cover page regarding the use of human subjects or vertebrate animals.
• Clarifications made to 2.3.6 Budget Details regarding budget guidance.
• Clarifications made to 2.3.7 Milestones and Deliverables regarding potential IRB or other policy requirements.
• Addition of 2.3.8 Status of Certification and Verification of Policy Requirements (Optional) as a section for the Application.

The full Research Opportunity Announcement can be found at https://datascience.nih.gov/MultimodalAI. 

Currently Reads:

NOTICE NUMBER: OTA-24-095

2.1 Eligibility

Successful applicants may or may not have received NIH funding in the past. All entities public and private, small or large, for-profit or not-for-profit, are eligible to apply.  

Organizations

Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (Foreign Applicants) are not eligible to apply. 

Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply. 

Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed. 

Applicant organizations may submit more than one application, provided that each application is scientifically distinct. Individuals not affiliated with an organization, or who want to submit an application independently of their current organization, may not apply. 

2.3 Applications

Applications must be submitted by the due date listed above and include the sections below.

• Cover page (max 1 page)
• Abstract (max 250 words)
• Research Narrative (up to 15 pages including any figures and images)
• A proposed management structure and teaming arrangements (up to 2 pages)
• A Data Management and Sharing Plan addressing Open Science, Transparency, and Data Protection (up to 3 pages)
• Key personnel and bio sketches (up to 3 pages per individual. No overall page limit)
• Budget Request and justification (no page limit)
• Milestones and deliverables (up to 3 pages)

2.3.1 Cover page

The cover page should be no more than one page and should contain the following information:

• Number and title of this Research Opportunity Announcement
• Project Title
• First and last name, title, institution, department, mailing address, email address, phone number, and email address for the Lead / Contact PI and Authorized Organizational Representative
• Names of all key personnel, institutional affiliation, title
• Confirmation that the work does not involve human subjects or vertebrate animals 
• Agreement that any or all parts of the application can be shared among other applicants
• Summary Budget Table showing requested budget per year for 2 years by institution and by year

2.3.6 Budget Details

The NIH may elect to negotiate any or all of the elements of the proposed budget.  NIH expects to support up to 10 projects with annual budgets around $1-2 million per project. Proposed budgets for the two year project period may not exceed $2,000,000 per annum.

2.3.7 Milestones and Deliverables

The expected initial project duration is up to two (2) years. Applicants must provide a description of the goals and milestones of the proposed project, including completion criteria, due dates, how success is defined for a given milestone, and payment/funding schedule (example provided below). Milestones may include, for example: demonstration of data availability, data processing and the ability to fuse data; demonstration of model training; demonstration of stakeholder engagement; demonstration of assessment feedback and co-design.  In addition, during the first six months of the project, NIH and the awardees will develop a set of performance metrics for the data sets and multimodal AI model at the “proof-of-concept” level.   

Modified to Read (changes shown in bold italics):

NOTICE NUMBER: OTA-24-015

2.1 Eligibility

Successful applicants may or may not have received NIH funding in the past. All entities public and private, small or large, for-profit or not-for-profit, are eligible to apply.  

Organizations

Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (Foreign Applicants) are not eligible to apply. 

Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply. 

Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed. 

Applicant organizations may submit more than one application, provided that each application is scientifically distinct. Individuals not affiliated with an organization, or who want to submit an application independently of their current organization, may not apply. 

Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC) may not propose to this Research Opportunity Announcement as a prime performer/lead institution; however, subject to any restrictions (i.e., direct competition limitations as determined by the entity or potential limiting organizational conflicts of interest, agency sponsor related requirements and policies, etc.), FFRDCs and UARCs may be included as part the prime performer's proposal, as a sub-awardee. As with all prime/sub-awardee teaming arrangements, the Government will only have privity of contract with the prime performer, and all payments will be made through the prime awardee. 

2.3 Applications

Applications must be submitted by the due date listed above and include the sections below. All application materials should use size 11 font, 1-inch margins, and single spacing.

• Cover page (max 1 page)
• Abstract (max 250 words)
• Research Narrative (up to 15 pages including any figures and images.  The reference list is not included in this page limit.)
• A proposed management structure and teaming arrangements (up to 2 pages)
• A Data Management and Sharing Plan addressing Open Science, Transparency, and Data Protection (up to 3 pages)
• Key personnel and bio sketches (up to 3 pages per individual.  No overall page limit)
• Budget Request and justification (no page limit)
• Milestones and deliverables (up to 3 pages)
• Status of Certification and Verification of Policy Requirements (Optional) (no page limit)

2.3.1 Cover page

The cover page should be no more than one page and should contain the following information:

• Number and title of this Research Opportunity Announcement
• Project Title
• First and last name, title, institution, department, mailing address, email address, phone number, and email address for the Lead / Contact PI and Authorized Organizational Representative
• Names of all key personnel, institutional affiliation, title
• Confirmation about whether the work involves human subjects or vertebrate animals
• Agreement that any or all parts of the application can be shared among other applicants
• Summary Budget Table showing requested budget per year for 2 years by institution and by year

2.3.6 Budget Details

The NIH may elect to negotiate any or all of the elements of the proposed budget.  NIH expects to support up to 10 projects with annual total budgets around $1-2 million per project. [Removed sentence “Proposed budgets for the two year project period may not exceed $2,000,000 per annum.”].

2.3.7 Milestones and Deliverables

The expected initial project duration is up to two (2) years. Applicants must provide a description of the goals and milestones of the proposed project, including completion criteria, due dates, how success is defined for a given milestone, and payment/funding schedule (example provided below). Milestones may include, for example: demonstration of data availability, data processing and the ability to fuse data; demonstration of model training; demonstration of stakeholder engagement; demonstration of assessment feedback and co-design.  In addition, during the first six months of the project, NIH and the awardees will develop a set of performance metrics for the data sets and multimodal AI model at the “proof-of-concept” level.   

Proposed timelines should be commensurate with the pace of technology development.

Milestones that are dependent on, for example, IRB approval, Data Use Agreements or other policy requirements should mention this in the Milestone Definition and include a statement about the status or timeline for the requirements being met e.g. IRB request submitted on DATE and approval expected on DATE.

2.3.8 Status of Certification And Verification of Policy Requirements (Optional)

As part of the negotiations process, NIH will request the submission of certification of IRB approval of the project’s proposed use of human subjects; verification of IACUC approval of the project’s proposed use of live vertebrate animals; and verification of Data Use Agreements or other policy requirements, as applicable.

At the time of proposal submission, applications are encouraged to use this section to provide evidence or attestations regarding the status of IRB approval, IACUC approval, or other processes.  This section should ONLY be used for providing information related to the status of IRB approval, IACUC approval, Data Use Agreements, and/or other policy requirements as applicable.

Details on NIH policies for Human Subjects Research can be found here: https://grants.nih.gov/policy/humansubjects/research.htm.

Details on NIH policies for vertebrate animal research can be found here:  https://olaw.nih.gov/guidance/vertebrate-animal-section.htm.

All other aspects of this ROA remain the same.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Agency Contacts: 

Scientific Research Contact(s)

Laura Biven, Rui Pereira De Sa, Lori Scott-Sheldon, Emily Greenspan, Juli Klemm

[email protected]

Financial / Agreements Officer

DJ Milliken

[email protected]