Limited Competition: NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory - Coordinating Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA AT 22 002

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA AT 22 002

This funding opportunity, RFA-AT-22-002, is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement (U24) intended to continue support for the Health Care Systems (HCS) Research Collaboratory Coordinating Center. The overarching goal is to maintain and strengthen a central hub that provides national leadership, practical infrastructure, and shared expertise for research conducted in close partnership with real-world health care systems. It is explicitly a "Clinical Trial Not Allowed" announcement for the Coordinating Center itself, meaning the application is not meant to propose or run a clinical trial as the primary activity; instead, it focuses on coordination, methods, support, and dissemination functions that enable other projects and the broader field.

The Coordinating Center is expected to play several core roles that collectively improve how pragmatic research is designed and implemented inside health care delivery settings. First, it must further develop and promote technical and policy guidelines, along with best practices, that make it easier and more reliable to conduct research in partnership with health care systems. In practice, this typically includes creating or refining playbooks, templates, and recommended approaches around issues like data governance, privacy and security expectations, IRB and ethics considerations in pragmatic designs, stakeholder engagement, implementation logistics, and workflow integration so that studies can fit into routine care without disrupting it unnecessarily.

Second, the Center must work directly with each NIH-supported Demonstration Project team within the Collaboratory program and their partnering health care systems. The expectation is hands-on collaboration that helps projects move from proposal to execution: supporting study design choices common in pragmatic trials (for example, cluster randomization considerations, embedded recruitment, outcome capture using electronic health records, and balancing internal validity with feasibility), coordinating cross-project learning, and helping resolve operational barriers that arise when research meets day-to-day clinical practice. This coordinating role also implies providing shared technical expertise and consistent processes so that individual Demonstration Projects do not have to reinvent solutions for common challenges.

Third, a major emphasis is on learning and spreading effective strategies for engaging health care systems as true research partners, not just data sources or implementation sites. The FOA highlights a particular focus on health care systems that have historically participated less in research. That priority points to activities such as developing engagement models that account for limited research infrastructure, creating scalable onboarding approaches, offering practical support for governance and contracting, and documenting what works to build trust and sustained participation. The intent is to broaden the diversity of health care contexts represented in pragmatic research so results are more generalizable and useful across different types of systems and patient populations.

Fourth, the Center is charged with advancing the science and practice of conducting pragmatic clinical trials in health care systems. Even though the Coordinating Center is not itself running a clinical trial under this award, it is expected to improve the field's ability to conduct future pragmatic trials by generating, refining, and disseminating methods, lessons learned, and tools. This includes capturing cross-cutting insights from Demonstration Projects, identifying recurring methodological gaps, and sharing solutions that help the wider research community run pragmatic trials across a variety of real-world settings, where constraints like varying EHR platforms, differing care workflows, and operational priorities are the norm.

Beyond these four pillars, the Coordinating Center also functions as the central resource that connects and supports the overall NIH HCS Research Collaboratory. In effect, it becomes the program's backbone: organizing shared activities, enabling communication and collaboration among participating projects and partners, and ensuring that knowledge generated by the program is packaged and distributed in ways that are usable by researchers and health systems alike. Because the funding mechanism is a cooperative agreement, NIH is typically more involved than in standard grants, with substantial programmatic interaction and expectations for active collaboration and coordination.

In terms of eligibility and administrative constraints, foreign institutions are not eligible to apply, non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are not eligible, and foreign components (as defined by NIH policy) are not allowed. The source data also lists small businesses among eligible applicants, indicating that certain non-traditional research organizations may be able to apply if they can credibly fulfill the coordinating and technical leadership responsibilities described. The opportunity falls under NIH and is categorized within education and health-related funding activity areas, with multiple CFDA numbers reflecting participation across NIH institutes and centers. The original closing date listed is December 15, 2021, and the FOA was created October 27, 2021; award ceiling and expected awards are not specified in the provided text.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Limited Competition: NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory - Coordinating Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.213, 93.233, 93.307, 93.361, 93.399, 93.837, 93.838, 93.839, 93.840, 93.846, 93.855, 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-10-27.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-12-15. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Small businesses.

Apply for RFA AT 22 002

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: