Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA TR 22 013

The Emergency Awards: HEAL Initiative - New Innovator Award (DP2 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity issued by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) in direct response to the federally declared public health emergency tied to the opioid crisis. The program sits under the broader Helping End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Initiative and is meant to accelerate bold, high-impact biomedical research that can change the trajectory of pain management, opioid use disorder (OUD), and overdose (OD) outcomes. The intent is not incremental progress or routine extensions of existing work, but genuinely novel ideas that could reshape thinking in the field or open new directions that are currently underexplored.

At its core, this opportunity supports postdoctoral researchers or newly independent Early Stage Investigators who show exceptional creativity and are ready to propose original research concepts with the potential for major impact. The emphasis is on innovation: projects that test scientific paradigms, challenge prevailing assumptions, or advance key concepts relevant to pain, OUD, and/or overdose. NCATS explicitly encourages proposals that bring together unexpected combinations of disciplines (for example, engineering plus behavioral science, computational methods plus clinical insight, or novel chemistry with implementation considerations), introduce new scientific directions, or rely on novel methodologies that could unlock faster or more effective solutions. Even though the program is framed as an emergency response, the scientific bar is still high and the expectation is that funded work will meaningfully move the broader research ecosystem forward.

A key limitation is embedded in the title: "Clinical Trial Not Allowed." That means applicants must design projects that do not meet NIH definitions of a clinical trial. In practical terms, the research can still be translational and human-relevant, but it must avoid interventional human studies where participants are prospectively assigned to an intervention to evaluate effects on health-related outcomes. This pushes applicants toward mechanistic studies, preclinical research, tool and technology development, data-driven analyses, observational approaches, or other non-trial designs that can still have clear relevance to pain, OUD, or overdose.

In terms of organizational eligibility, the FOA is broadly open across government, education, nonprofit, and private-sector entities in the United States. Eligible applicants include state, county, city or township governments, special district governments, independent school districts, and public housing authorities. It also includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (outside higher education), for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), and small businesses. Tribal participation is also supported: federally recognized Native American tribal governments are eligible, as are Native American tribal organizations that are not federally recognized tribal governments. The FOA also highlights additional eligible categories such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), faith-based or community-based organizations, certain eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions.

Foreign participation is explicitly restricted. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and foreign institutions are not eligible to apply. In addition, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible, and foreign components (as NIH defines them in its Grants Policy Statement) are not allowed. In effect, the work and the organizational structure must remain domestically based, without foreign subcomponents that NIH would treat as a foreign component of the project.

Administrative details in the source information indicate this is a discretionary grant mechanism under an NIH Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) numbered RFA-TR-22-013. The original closing date listed is April 19, 2023, and the maximum award amount (award ceiling) is $1,500,000. Multiple CFDA (now Assistance Listing) numbers are associated with the opportunity, reflecting NIH program authorities that can support this kind of research across translational science and health-related domains (including 93.213, 93.273, 93.350, 93.393, 93.846, 93.847, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866). While the source excerpt does not specify the exact number of expected awards, the ceiling indicates that NIH intends to fund substantial, ambitious projects with enough support to enable real leaps in capability or understanding.

Overall, the program can be read as an emergency-driven innovation engine: it targets early-career scientific leaders and asks them to bring forward daring, creative, methodologically fresh research ideas that could materially change how the biomedical community understands or addresses pain, opioid use disorder, and overdose, while staying within a non-clinical-trial scope and within strictly domestic eligibility boundaries.

  • The National Institutes of Health in the education, food and nutrition, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Emergency Awards: HEAL Initiative- New Innovator Award (DP2 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, 93.273, 93.350, 93.393, 93.846, 93.847, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866.
  • This funding opportunity was created on 2022-01-20.
  • Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-04-19. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
  • Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,500,000.00 in funding.
  • Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.
Apply for RFA TR 22 013

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