BRAIN Initiative Planning for Next Generation Human Brain Imaging (R24) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The BRAIN Initiative Planning for Next Generation Human Brain Imaging (R24) opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-MH-14-217) is an NIH grant program designed to jump-start the planning and earliest development steps for entirely new, or truly next generation, human brain imaging technologies and methods. The core purpose is not to fund routine incremental improvements to existing imaging tools, but to help teams lay the groundwork for imaging approaches that could ultimately change what scientists can measure in the living human brain, how precisely they can measure it, and what kinds of questions they can answer about brain function, organization, and disease. In practical terms, this R24 mechanism emphasizes coordinated planning, feasibility work, and the kinds of early-stage technical and organizational efforts that are necessary before a more mature, large-scale development program can succeed.

This announcement sits under the broader NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative and is administered by the National Institutes of Health. It is categorized as a discretionary grant program and aligns with multiple health and research areas reflected in the listed CFDA numbers, spanning neuroscience, mental health, substance use, aging, vision, nursing research, translational sciences, and other biomedical research domains. That breadth signals that the imaging innovations envisioned here are expected to have wide applicability across many areas of human health and basic neuroscience, rather than being confined to a single disease area or institute mission.

The funding is intended specifically for planning activities and initial development work. That typically means supporting the conceptual and technical foundation-building needed to make a high-risk imaging idea testable and scalable: defining the scientific and technical aims, clarifying performance targets, identifying engineering and computational needs, developing early prototypes or proof-of-concept demonstrations, establishing standards or benchmarks for data quality, and organizing collaborative frameworks that bring together the right mix of expertise (for example, imaging physics, engineering, neuroscience, clinical research, statistics, and data science). The emphasis on “transformative advances” conveys that projects should aim for step changes in capability, such as new ways to capture brain activity or structure with improved resolution, speed, coverage, interpretability, or practical usability in humans.

From an applicant standpoint, eligibility is broad and includes academic institutions (public and private), nonprofit organizations (including those with and without 501(c)(3) status), for-profit organizations (including small businesses), and a range of government entities (state, county, city/township, special district governments, and eligible federal agencies). The eligibility list also explicitly includes historically underrepresented and mission-specific institutions such as HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribally controlled colleges and universities, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions, and AANAPISI institutions, as well as faith-based and community-based organizations. Importantly, non-U.S. entities are eligible to apply: foreign organizations and foreign institutions can submit applications, and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are also eligible. In addition, foreign components are allowed as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement, which helps enable international collaborations when they add clear value to the proposed work.

Financially, the announcement indicates an estimated total funding amount of $4,000,000 and an award ceiling of $300,000, with no cost sharing or matching requirement. The posted date was December 17, 2013, with creation on March 5, 2014. The original closing date was March 13, 2014, later extended to March 27, 2014, and the opportunity was archived on April 27, 2014. Those dates matter mainly for historical context, but they also indicate this was a time-bound call aligned with early BRAIN Initiative priorities, aimed at rapidly mobilizing planning efforts around human brain imaging innovation.

The primary “deliverable” implied by the structure and intent of this R24 is a well-justified, technically grounded plan and early evidence that a proposed imaging concept can be developed into a workable next generation human brain imaging approach. Competitive projects under this kind of announcement generally have a clear vision of the gap in current human brain imaging, a compelling rationale for why the new method could overcome that limitation, and a realistic pathway to de-risk the idea through initial development milestones. The goal is to position successful teams to move from concept and early feasibility into later-stage technology development efforts that could produce broadly usable tools for the neuroscience community and, eventually, meaningful advances in understanding the human brain in health and disease.

For additional details, the full announcement is linked through NIH at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-MH-14-217.html. For technical issues accessing the announcement or linking to it, the contact provided is the NIH OER Webmaster at FBOWebmaster@OD.NIH.GOV.

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