Biomedical Knowledgebase (U24 - Clinical Trials Not Allowed) | PAR 20 097

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 20 097

The Biomedical Knowledgebase (U24 - Clinical Trials Not Allowed) opportunity (PAR 20-097) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a cooperative agreement meant to sustain and improve biomedical knowledgebases that serve the research community. The central goal is to support resources whose main job is to extract, collect, organize, annotate, and connect expanding bodies of biomedical information that are anchored to one or more core datasets. In practical terms, the funded work is expected to keep important community data resources current, reliable, and interoperable, so that researchers can find, interpret, and reuse curated information efficiently.

A major emphasis of this announcement is on high-quality, scalable data curation. Applicants are expected to propose curation approaches that are both efficient and effective at the scale required by their user community, including the use of semi-automated curation methods where appropriate. The intent is to ensure that knowledgebases can keep up with rapid data growth while maintaining strong standards for accuracy, consistency, provenance, and annotation quality. Knowledgebases supported under this mechanism should function as community-facing infrastructure, where the curated and linked information meaningfully increases the value of underlying datasets by making them easier to interpret and integrate across studies.

Software and tool development can be included, but it must be clearly limited to what is essential for operating the knowledgebase or what substantially improves the knowledgebase's efficiency. This means tools are acceptable when they directly support core knowledgebase functions such as ingestion pipelines, automated or semi-automated annotation workflows, quality control, search and retrieval, standardization, or linking across identifiers and ontologies. However, applications that primarily focus on building software tools, platforms, or general-purpose analytics, rather than operating and curating a knowledgebase itself, are considered out of scope for this activity. The mechanism is explicitly "Clinical Trials Not Allowed," so projects proposing clinical trial activities would not be appropriate under this FOA.

The award uses a U24 cooperative agreement structure, which typically indicates substantial involvement from NIH staff in shaping or overseeing aspects of the project as it operates, reflecting the infrastructure-like nature of knowledgebases and their importance to NIH-supported research communities. The opportunity falls within NIH health-related funding activity categories and is associated with multiple CFDA numbers (93.113, 93.273, 93.279, 93.307, 93.393, 93.394, 93.395, 93.396, 93.399, 93.853, 93.859), reflecting the broad relevance of knowledgebases across biomedical domains.

Eligibility is broad and includes many organization types, such as state, county, and local 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; tribal organizations that are not federally recognized; 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; and small businesses. The FOA also explicitly highlights additional eligible applicants such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, AANAPISIs, Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations), Indian/Native American tribal governments other than federally recognized, and U.S. territories or possessions. This wide eligibility reflects NIH's interest in supporting critical data resources wherever strong expertise and community stewardship exist.

Key administrative details in the source information include the opportunity being categorized as discretionary and using the cooperative agreement funding instrument. The record lists an original closing date of 2023-05-08 and a creation date of 2020-01-17. Award ceiling and expected number of awards are not specified in the provided source excerpt, so applicants would typically need to consult the full FOA text and any associated NIH Institute or Center guidance to understand budget expectations, project period norms, and review considerations.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, environment, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Biomedical Knowledgebase (U24 - Clinical Trials Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.113, 93.273, 93.279, 93.307, 93.393, 93.394, 93.395, 93.396, 93.399, 93.853, 93.859.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2020-01-17.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-05-08. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• 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.

Apply for PAR 20 097

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