Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Community-based Data and Metadata Standards Efforts (R24) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Community-based Data and Metadata Standards Efforts (R24) funding opportunity is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant program designed to speed up the development, refinement, or extension of data and metadata standards that matter to NIH-funded research. The main idea is to provide time-limited, catalytic support, meaning the award is intended to jump-start or significantly advance community standards work rather than serve as open-ended operational funding. It focuses on standards and related tools that can improve how biomedical data are described, shared, integrated, and reused across basic science, translational research, and clinical research settings.

This FOA supports projects at any point in the data standards lifecycle. That can include early-stage community coordination and requirements gathering, consensus-building and specification writing, aligning or harmonizing existing standards, creating implementation guidance, building validators or other supporting software, piloting a standard in real research workflows, or evaluating adoption and fitness for use. A key expectation is that applicants do not reinvent the wheel when strong efforts already exist. Proposals are encouraged to build on existing partnerships, infrastructure, and resources whenever possible, which reflects NIH's interest in reducing fragmentation and increasing interoperability across communities.

A central review theme is demonstrated community demand. Projects must show a compelling scientific community interest and a clear need for standards efforts in the specific domain or domains being targeted. That typically means the proposal should be grounded in real use cases and supported by evidence that researchers, data generators, repositories, tool developers, and other stakeholders actually want the standard and are likely to use it. The FOA also stresses meaningful engagement of end-user communities and relevant stakeholders throughout the process. In practical terms, this points toward open, transparent governance; working groups or steering committees; community feedback cycles; public comment periods; and clear mechanisms for incorporating stakeholder input so that the resulting standard is not just technically sound but also adoptable in day-to-day research practice.

Another major requirement is openness and accessibility of outputs. The resulting data standard and any associated tools or products are expected to be made freely available to the broader scientific research community. Distribution is expected to happen through a curated, searchable portal, emphasizing findability and discoverability rather than ad hoc posting. This aligns with broader BD2K goals of making biomedical data more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) by ensuring that standards and tooling are easy to locate, understand, and implement.

Sustainability is treated as a core consideration rather than an afterthought. Because the support is time-limited, applicants need to address long-term maintenance and the plan for keeping the standard current after the NIH award ends. The FOA highlights practical issues such as dissemination strategies (how the standard will be promoted and adopted), evaluation (how success will be measured, including usage and impact), and updating or refinement over time (how changes will be proposed, reviewed, approved, versioned, and communicated). Strong proposals typically describe a credible governance and maintenance model, potential host organizations or community bodies that will carry the work forward, and a realistic plan for ongoing stewardship without relying indefinitely on the initial grant.

In terms of administrative details, this is a discretionary grant opportunity from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, under Funding Opportunity Number RFA-ES-16-010. It uses the R24 activity code, which commonly supports resource-related efforts, including community resource development and coordination. The opportunity was created on Aug 16, 2016, with an original closing date of Oct 19, 2017. The award ceiling listed is $250,000, and NIH anticipated making about 5 awards under this announcement.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of organizations that could credibly lead standards efforts. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments and other tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); small businesses; and other entities as clarified in the FOA text. The breadth of eligibility reflects the reality that standards work often spans academia, government, nonprofit consortia, and industry, and that successful standards frequently require cross-sector participation.

Overall, this BD2K R24 opportunity is best understood as NIH support for community-driven, interoperability-focused standards infrastructure. It is aimed at producing practical, openly available standards and enabling tools that researchers can actually implement, while also requiring a credible plan for adoption, evaluation, and long-term stewardship beyond the grant period.

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