facebook pixel Skip to Main Content
Idaho State University home

MW CTR-IN Multi-Site Pilot Project

The mission of the MW CTR-IN Program is to increase and enhance clinical and translational research capacity and facilitate extramural funding success among investigators with faculty appointments at the 13 MW university partners. In the past eight years, the MW CTR-IN Program has provided more than $7.5M in pilot grant funding to over 100 investigators at our partner universities.

MULTI-SITE PILOT PROJECT (MSPP) FUNDING OPPORTUNITY:

Full description: MSPP FOA

Important Dates and Deadlines

October 17   5:00 pm Notify OSP intent to submit.  Please include project title.
November 1 5:00 pm MW CTR-IN Multi-Site Pilot Project pre-proposal to Sponsored Programs submission portal
November 21   Proposal selection and PI notification
December 13        Proposal submitted to MW CTR-IN

MULTI-SITE PILOT PROJECT (MSPP) NOI submission portal

Please submit your LOI here.

MULTI-SITE PILOT PROJECT (MSPP) application submission portal

Please submit your application here.

Purpose. The purpose of this funding opportunity is to provide support for multi-site clinical and translational (CTR) research with the expectation that the project will yield key preliminary data and capacity building to facilitate a large-scale multi-site extramural grant application or other extramural grant funding opportunities.  

Webinar. We will have a webinar for details about this year’s funding mechanisms. The live webinar will be held on October 5th at 2:00 PM Mountain Time. The link to join the webinar is:
https://umontana.zoom.us/j/94044340039?pwd=Mnd3Z3ZPVDlicDlPV1E2RTBWUEJWZz09

Multisite Training.
Kim Page will also be hosting a training about conducting multi-site trials. The information about the training session will be announced during the webinar.

Overview and Criteria. Multi-Site Pilot Projects must include CTR-IN partner institutions in at least two MW states involving at least 2 partner universities. We also recognize the complexity of conducting such a large multi-site project. Hence, the potential PI and Co-PIs should consider an initial project that first demonstrates the feasibility of conducting such a large-scale multi-site project.   

Programmatic Priorities. Working in conjunction with our two Regional Community Advisory Boards (CABs) representing all six Mountain West states, we solicited input on funding priorities for the communities we serve. The following specific themes were consistently identified across all CABs:  

  • Childhood obesity and metabolic conditions including diabetes and other related factors of food security, food sovereignty, and healthy food access.
  • Opioid and other substance abuse, mental health / suicide prevention and psycho-social trauma.
  • COVID-19, including impacts to healthcare access, associated influences on mental health, and disproportionate impacts to vulnerable populations.

We recognize that the above areas of research do not capture all important health priorities in all of the communities that we serve or that the CABs identified, and our funding determinations are not limited to these above topics. We also anticipate that these programmatic priorities will be revised and updated in forthcoming years as we continue to receive input from our regional stakeholders. All applications will undergo the same scientific merit review per standard NIH procedures, regardless of the topic area.    

Principal Investigator (PI) Eligibility. The PI must 1) have a faculty-level appointment with a minimum of 0.5 FTE support at a participating CTR-IN Institution, and 2) must be eligible to submit extramural grant applications from their institution as a PI. The PI must devote at least 20% effort (2.4 person months) to the Pilot Grant project. Prior CTR-IN awardees are eligible to apply, but they must be in good standing (i.e., submission of requested progress reports and updates). Per IDeA program policy, an awardee may not concurrently receive funding for their research program through other IDeA mechanisms (e.g., CTR, COBRE or INBRE). 

Direct Cost: Direct costs are $90,000 to $150,000, although justification for higher direct costs will be considered depending on the number of states and institutions involved. UNLV will administer separate subawards for each collaborating site. 

Awardee Obligations. The investigator team will be expected to work with the CTR-IN programmatic Cores [e.g., Professional Development (PD), Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO), and Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Research & Design (BERD)] that will provide mentorship and guidance on multi-site clinical study design, biostatistics, community engagement and outreach, grant writing and identification of extramural funding opportunities. In particular, the investigator team should utilize support of the multisite data coordination offered at the University of New Mexico Health Science Center through the BERD Core for funded multi-site pilot projects. 

APPLICATION PROCESS

STEP ONE - Limited competition nomination of applicants from eligible institutions: Applications for the Lead Site of a Multi-Site Project must be nominated by their institution and subsequently invited by MW CTR-IN Program to submit a full application. Potential applicants must contact their local MW CTR-IN Concierge (Mary Van Muelken (vanmmary@isu.edu 208.282.1171 or Steve Wright wrigstep@isu.edu 208.282.2593) for instructions on the internal nominating process. Each partner institution may nominate up to one application as Lead Institution, but institutions can be collaborating sites on multiple proposals.

Nominating Packets submitted for internal review and forwarded to CTR-IN must include the following for each applicant:

  • An NIH format Biographical Sketch for the proposed Lead PI.
  • An NIH format “Other Support” document for the proposed PI.
  • A summary of the proposed research strategy of not more than two pages with sufficient detail to establish that the research is clinical or translational. Format: Title, Specific Aims, Research Strategy (include Significance, Innovation and Approach). Header: PI’s name and contact information. Margins: half inch or greater. Font: 11 point Arial.
  • References (optional and does not count toward two page summary)
  • The list of collaborating partner sites and corresponding Site Leads.

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Eligible Mountain West CTR-IN Institutions:

Boise State University University of Alaska, Fairbanks University of Nevada Las Vegas
Idaho State University University of Wyoming University of Nevada Reno
Montana State University University of Idaho  
New Mexico State University University of Montana  
University of Alaska, Anchorage University of New Mexico HSC  

The types of clinical or translation research we fund:
Projects must be clinical or translational research (CTR). Clinical research, as defined by NIH, is research with human subjects that is:

  1. patient-oriented research;
  2. epidemiological or behavioral studies; or
  3. outcomes or health services research.

Translational research has been interpreted in a variety of ways in recent years, and CTR-IN characterizes translational research according to the recent review on this topic. For this funding mechanism, we do not support pre-clinical research, sometimes referred to at T0 research. CTR-IN supports four main areas of translational research, defined as follows:

T1: Translation of basic science to early testing in humans;

T2: Early phase clinical trial; efficacy; establishment of clinical guidelines;

T3: Implementation and dissemination research; and

T4: Outcomes and effectiveness research.