Research on Integrity in Collaborative Research (R21) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

Research on Integrity in Collaborative Research (R21) (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-RR-10-001) is a National Institutes of Health discretionary grant opportunity focused on improving understanding of research integrity specifically in the context of collaborative work. Issued with involvement from NCRR, FIC, NIBIB, ORI, and OHRP, the program invites institutions and organizations to propose studies examining how the relationships, structures, and day-to-day practices of collaboration shape integrity in research. The emphasis is not on general ethics training in the abstract, but on how integrity is influenced when research is conducted across teams, laboratories, institutions, disciplines, and sometimes countries, where shared responsibility, communication, and differing expectations can complicate decision-making and accountability.

The opportunity uses the NIH R21 exploratory/developmental mechanism, which is meant to support early-stage, high-potential ideas in areas where the existing evidence base is limited. In practical terms, this FOA is trying to stimulate new lines of inquiry, pilot work, and innovative approaches that can identify specific problem areas and generate data that later research can build on. Projects are expected to be exploratory but still well-justified, and they should aim to open up new understanding of why integrity can break down in collaborative environments and what conditions help prevent that from happening.

To be responsive, applications must directly address the influence of collaborative interactions and/or activities on research integrity in at least one priority area highlighted by ORI and NIH. These areas include clarifying community norms and standards (for example, how teams decide what counts as acceptable authorship, data stewardship, peer review behavior, or disclosure practices); evaluating the effectiveness of self-regulation (such as how labs, departments, professional societies, journals, or consortia enforce norms without external intervention); identifying societal, organizational, group, or individual factors that affect integrity either positively or negatively (including incentives, leadership, mentoring, power dynamics, competition, cultural differences, workload, or training); and assessing the impacts of not following accepted codes of conduct (for instance, consequences for data reliability, public trust, patient safety, team functioning, and career trajectories). Strong proposals are expected to connect these integrity questions to the realities of collaboration, such as distributed work, shared datasets, multi-site trials, cross-disciplinary standards, remote communication, or uneven oversight across partners.

The FOA also makes it clear that it is looking for work that is genuinely innovative. Proposed studies should challenge existing paradigms, be driven by an original hypothesis, or tackle major barriers that have slowed progress in understanding deviations from integrity in collaborative settings. In other words, reviewers are being cued to value projects that do more than restate known concerns; the intent is to produce sharper explanations of the multiple contributing factors behind integrity failures or successes in collaborative research and, ideally, to point toward strategies that could be tested or implemented later.

Relevance to health-related research is a requirement. Projects must have clear applicability to biomedical research, behavioral health sciences, or health services research. Applicants are also encouraged to align their chosen questions with issues that match the missions and interests of ORI or specific NIH Institutes and Centers, which signals that the program wants work that can inform real oversight, policy, and practice rather than remaining purely theoretical.

Funding for fiscal year 2010 was anticipated at $850,000 in total costs, supporting an estimated two to three new awards. The award ceiling listed is $200,000. As with many federal opportunities, awards were contingent on the availability of funds and the receipt of a sufficient number of meritorious applications. Key dates included a posted and created date of December 1, 2009, an application closing date of April 7, 2010, and an archive date of May 8, 2010.

Eligibility was broad and included many types of applicants across the public, private, nonprofit, and governmental landscape. Eligible applicants included state, county, city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status; for-profit organizations (including small businesses and other than small businesses); public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; Native American tribal governments (federally recognized) and tribal organizations; and additional categories such as HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions, tribally controlled colleges and universities, faith-based or community-based organizations, U.S. territories or possessions, regional organizations, and non-U.S. (foreign) entities. The FOA also specified that there was no cost sharing or matching requirement.

Overall, this R21 opportunity is best understood as NIH and ORI encouraging the research community to take a hard, evidence-driven look at how collaboration changes the integrity landscape: where norms become unclear, where accountability becomes diffuse, what organizational and human factors predict problems or protect against them, and what the real consequences are when teams do not adhere to accepted standards. The goal is to generate new knowledge that can strengthen the culture and practice of integrity in modern, increasingly networked health research.

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