Advanced Development of Informatics Technology (U24) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Advanced Development of Informatics Technology (U24) funding opportunity (PAR-12-287) is a National Institutes of Health program, led through the National Cancer Institute, aimed at pushing promising cancer-focused informatics tools beyond the early prototype stage and into more mature, impactful, and broadly usable technologies. The core idea is to support advanced development and enhancement of "emerging" informatics technologies that can meaningfully improve how cancer research data and knowledge are acquired, managed, analyzed, and shared. These projects are expected to strengthen real-world usability, scalability, performance, robustness, and adoption potential, rather than simply proving a concept.

A key feature of this FOA is how it defines an "emerging informatics technology." The technology should already be past initial prototyping and pilot development, with enough evidence to show it could have significant broader impact. At the same time, it should still have clear reasons why additional development is needed, and it should not yet be widely adopted in the cancer research community. In other words, the announcement is targeting tools that are promising but not finished: they have shown value, but they need substantial engineering, refinement, and enhancement to become widely usable and to influence cancer research at scale.

The program is designed to accelerate progress across multiple areas of cancer research, including cancer biology, cancer treatment and diagnosis, cancer prevention, cancer control and epidemiology, and research addressing cancer health disparities. By improving the underlying informatics infrastructure and tools used in these domains, the FOA aims to make research workflows more efficient, reproducible, and collaborative. Technologies funded under this mechanism are expected to enable better handling of complex cancer datasets and better dissemination of resulting knowledge to researchers and, indirectly, to clinicians and public health communities.

This opportunity uses the Cooperative Agreement (U24) funding instrument, which typically implies substantial involvement from the funding agency compared with a standard research grant. Practically, that usually means funded teams should be prepared for an interactive relationship with NCI program staff, including coordination, milestone-driven development expectations, and alignment with broader initiative goals. The FOA is explicitly positioned as part of the NCI Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) Initiative, which focuses on research-driven informatics technology development and seeks to build a portfolio of interoperable, high-impact tools for the cancer research ecosystem.

The FOA also draws a firm boundary around what does not fit. Applications that primarily focus on data processing and analysis or on mathematical/statistical modeling, without true informatics technology development, are considered non-responsive. The emphasis is on creating or substantially advancing a technology platform, tool, or system, not simply applying existing tools to analyze datasets or developing methods in isolation from a software or systems deliverable. Applicants interested in earlier, more exploratory work are directed to companion FOAs tailored for early-stage development, signaling that this particular announcement is meant for projects ready for a more advanced build and broader dissemination pathway.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding under the health activity area and is associated with CFDA number 93.396 (Cancer Biology Research). It does not require cost sharing or matching. The listed award ceiling is $500,000, indicating an upper bound on annual direct costs or total costs depending on NIH-specific interpretation in the full announcement; applicants would need to confirm the budget structure details in the NIH guide notice itself. Key dates shown in the source record include a posted date of September 19, 2012, with the record later created on August 6, 2013, and an original closing date of June 18, 2015; the dataset excerpt also shows a "current closing date" of August 6, 2013 and an archive date of September 6, 2013, suggesting the listing snapshot reflects an archived or time-bounded version of the opportunity and that applicants would need to verify the currently active status through NIH systems if looking for a live equivalent today.

Eligibility is broad and includes many organization types: for-profit organizations (including those other than small businesses), small businesses, nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), public and private institutions of higher education, and a wide range of government entities (state, county, city or township, special district). It also includes Native American tribal governments (both federally recognized and other than federally recognized) and tribal organizations, public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, independent school districts, and additional categories such as faith-based or community-based organizations. The eligibility list explicitly includes minority-serving institutions such as HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, AANAPISIs, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian serving institutions, and tribally controlled colleges and universities. Notably, the FOA also indicates eligibility for non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations), as well as regional organizations and U.S. territories or possessions, which is important for international collaborations and multi-region informatics efforts.

Overall, PAR-12-287 is best understood as a later-stage technology maturation opportunity within NCI's ITCR program: it is intended for teams that already have an informatics technology with demonstrated promise and are ready to harden it, expand its capabilities, and move it toward broader adoption in cancer research. The strongest fit would be projects where the main outputs are improved software, platforms, standards-based tools, or other informatics technologies that measurably enhance how cancer research data and knowledge are handled, shared, and reused across the community.

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Next opportunity: Early Stage Development of Informatics Technology (U01)

Previous opportunity: Revisions for Early Stage Development of Informatics Technology (R01)

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