NIH: Collaborative Innovation Award, Clinical and Translational Science Award Program
The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is inviting applications to stimulate innovative collaborative research in the NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) consortium. Because translating biomedical discoveries into clinical applications is essential to improving health and at the same time a complex process with high costs and substantial failure rates, the CTSA hubs are designed to promote advances in translational research and training at participating medical research institutions. NCATS recently released a funding opportunity announcement (FOA), Collaborative Innovation Award, Clinical and Translational Science Award Program (PAR-15-172), to enable collaboration among CTSA hubs to overcome system-wide barriers in translational effectiveness.
“Translation” is defined by NCATS as “the process of turning observations in the laboratory, clinic, and community into interventions that improve the health of individuals, and the public, from diagnostics and therapeutics in medical procedures and behavioral change.”
The FOA is one of several sequential steps being taken by NCATS to evolve the CTSA program to augment its ability, as recommended by a recent Institute of Medicine report (see Update, August 11, 2014). It seeks to encourage all of the CTSA hubs to collaboratively conceptualize, develop, and implement multi-site innovative experimental approaches that overcome translational barriers in science, operations, and training.