Limited Competition: Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program: Exploratory Collaborative Innovation Awards (R21 Clinical Trial Optional) | PAR 19 100

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 19 100

The Limited Competition: Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program: Exploratory Collaborative Innovation Awards (R21 Clinical Trial Optional) (PAR-19-100) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant opportunity designed to spark early-stage, high-impact innovation within the CTSA consortium. It focuses on improving how quickly and effectively scientific observations move from the laboratory, to clinical settings, and out into communities as real-world interventions that improve individual and public health. The core idea is to fund exploratory, proof-of-concept style projects that test whether a proposed innovation is feasible and useful, especially when that innovation could make translational research more efficient, higher quality, or more impactful.

A defining feature of this opportunity is collaboration across the CTSA network. Projects must involve investigators from two or more CTSA Program hub institutions. The FOA is intentionally structured to promote cross-hub team science, and it supports three main collaboration pathways: forming entirely new multi-hub collaborations, significantly expanding the scientific scope of existing collaborations, or bringing new partners into an established collaboration to tackle the FOA goals. In practical terms, NIH is looking for teams that can combine complementary expertise, resources, data, methods, or community connections across hubs to develop solutions that a single institution would have trouble building alone.

The award mechanism is the NIH R21, which is commonly used for exploratory and developmental research. That means the emphasis is on novelty and testing an idea rather than delivering a fully mature, large-scale program. The projects supported under this FOA are expected to generate early evidence, prototypes, pilot data, or initial validation that can justify later, more definitive funding. The “Clinical Trial Optional” designation indicates that applicants may propose studies that include clinical trials, but they are not required to do so; both trial and non-trial projects can fit, as long as they align with the FOA purpose and NIH rules for the chosen study type.

Eligibility is limited and primarily geared toward U.S.-based academic and research institutions that are part of the CTSA hub ecosystem. The listed eligible applicant category includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, reflecting the CTSA hub landscape. Foreign (non-U.S.) institutions are not eligible to apply as applicant organizations, and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible to apply. However, foreign components are allowed under NIH policy (as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement), meaning a U.S. applicant can include certain international elements in the project when well-justified and compliant with NIH requirements, even though a non-U.S. institution cannot serve as the primary applicant.

From a funding perspective, the opportunity is a discretionary NIH grant in the health activity category (CFDA 93.350). The award ceiling is listed as $200,000, signaling that projects should be tightly scoped around testing feasibility, building an initial tool or approach, or producing early results that can be scaled later. The original closing date shown is November 9, 2021, and the FOA creation date is December 12, 2018, which places it in a defined NIH solicitation cycle and indicates that applicants would need to confirm the current availability or any reissued versions if pursuing it now.

Overall, this FOA is aimed at CTSA-affiliated teams that want to move fast on a promising translational innovation, validate whether it works, and demonstrate enough value to influence broader CTSA practices or to form the basis for subsequent, larger awards. The strongest fits are collaborative, multi-hub projects that directly address bottlenecks in translational science and offer practical, testable innovations that could measurably improve the pathway from discovery to health impact.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Limited Competition: Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program: Exploratory Collaborative Innovation Awards (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.350.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-12-12.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-11-09. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $200,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for PAR 19 100

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: