BRAIN Initiative: Exploratory Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - eTeamBCP (U01 Clinical Trials Optional) | RFA NS 20 029

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA NS 20 029

The BRAIN Initiative: Exploratory Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs (eTeamBCP) funding opportunity (RFA-NS-20-029) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement mechanism (U01) designed to support team-based, milestone-driven projects that tackle challenging problems in understanding brain circuits. As a BRAIN Initiative program, its emphasis is on accelerating progress through ambitious, collaborative research efforts that go beyond what a single lab typically can do, especially where multiple types of expertise, technologies, datasets, or experimental systems need to be integrated into a coherent circuit-level research plan. The notice indicates this opportunity is a reissue of RFA-NS-18-029, which generally signals that the goals, structure, and expectations closely track the earlier solicitation, including a focus on exploratory but coordinated circuit research programs organized around clearly defined objectives and deliverables.

Functionally, the U01 cooperative agreement format means NIH is expected to have substantial involvement beyond standard grant stewardship. Applicants should generally anticipate more structured project management than a typical R01, including negotiated milestones, regular progress reporting, and active coordination with NIH program staff and potentially other awardee teams. The “Clinical Trials Optional” designation indicates that applicants may propose studies that meet NIH’s definition of a clinical trial if appropriate to the circuit-focused aims, but they are not required to do so. In practice, that can accommodate a range of human-focused research, such as mechanistic studies that include prospective assignment to an intervention or task, provided the proposal remains aligned with the program’s core objective of understanding or manipulating neural circuits rather than simply demonstrating clinical efficacy.

The program sits within the Department of Health and Human Services under NIH and spans multiple NIH components (reflected by the multiple CFDA numbers listed: 93.173, 93.213, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.313, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867). That breadth is consistent with BRAIN Initiative efforts that often cut across neuroscience, neurotechnology, computation, engineering, and clinical/translational domains. The scope implied by “Exploratory Team-Research” and “Circuit Programs” typically centers on integrated, multi-approach projects aimed at revealing how specific neural circuits are organized, how they function dynamically, and how circuit activity relates to behavior or disease-relevant processes. Common elements for this kind of program (based on the reissued predecessor RFA) include strong justification for the circuit focus, use of state-of-the-art tools or novel combinations of methods, and a plan that explicitly benefits from team science (for example, coupling large-scale recording or imaging with perturbation, computational modeling, and careful behavioral or clinical phenotyping).

Eligibility is broad and includes many domestic organization types: state, county, and city/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; other Native American tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status (excluding institutions of higher education in those nonprofit categories); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; small businesses; and other applicants as allowed under the additional eligibility language in the full announcement. This wide eligibility range is typical of NIH RFAs and is particularly relevant for team-based BRAIN projects where academic groups may partner with industry or specialized research organizations to build or deploy advanced technologies, analytic pipelines, or platforms.

From an award planning standpoint, the opportunity lists an expected five awards, suggesting a competitive program with a relatively small cohort of funded teams. The award ceiling is listed as 0, which in NIH listings commonly means there is no single fixed cap stated in the summary fields, and applicants must rely on the detailed RFA language (and NIH norms for the mechanism) to understand budget expectations, allowable costs, and whether modular or non-modular budgeting applies. Because U01s are often milestone-based, budgets are typically expected to align closely with a realistic project plan, including personnel for coordination and data management, shared resources, and any required consortium/subaward arrangements. The opportunity was created April 1, 2020, with an original closing date of June 15, 2021, placing it within a defined BRAIN Initiative funding cycle; for reissues, NIH frequently maintains similar scientific goals while updating submission dates, administrative details, or areas of emphasis based on programmatic needs and advances in the field.

Overall, eTeamBCP is best read as a call for tightly coordinated, multi-investigator research programs that push circuit neuroscience forward through integration of complementary strengths, with NIH playing an active partnership role. Strong applications under this kind of solicitation are typically those that present a compelling circuit-level question, a credible integrated strategy to answer it, clear milestones and decision points, and a team structure that makes the collaboration essential rather than incidental, while also addressing expected BRAIN Initiative norms around rigor, reproducibility, data/resource sharing, and responsible use of animals or human participants when applicable.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health in the education, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BRAIN Initiative: Exploratory Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - eTeamBCP (U01 Clinical Trials Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.173, 93.213, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.313, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 01, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 15, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for RFA NS 20 029

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