High Risk Reward NIH Grant Announced

An interesting funding opportunity opened up at the NIH. This is similar to SBIR Phase I, but only applicants who haven’t received SBIR before are eligible. It is an early stage technology development program – “high risk reward”. Details are pasted below. The full announcement is available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-09-009.html. 

 Recovery Act Limited Competition: Small Business Catalyst Awards for Accelerating Innovative Research (R43) Letters of Intent Due Date: August 3, 2009 Application Due Date(s): September 1, 2009 Budget requests are limited to $200,000 total costs for a maximum project period of one year Research Plan: not to exceed 6 pages, including tables, graphs, figures, diagrams, and charts The Small Business Catalyst Award for Accelerating Innovative Research funding opportunity: Applications are solicited for support for projects that have the potential to generate high impact results (e.g., products, processes or services) and/or innovative research applications, research tools, techniques, devices, inventions, or methodologies. The outcomes of the research supported should have potential to lead to products that will improve public health and create significant value and economic stimulus. This FOA solicits early-stage ideas that promise to lead to major leaps forward in capabilities important to serving the mission of NIH rather than incremental improvements of existing technologies. In accord with the funding priority of this initiative to attract applicants without a history of SBIR/STTR support from NIH, the focus of the projects solicited by this FOA is on early stage technology development.