Turning Science into Health: Improving the Innovation Process

Request for Applications (RFA)

APPLICATIONS DUE: Wednesday, April 16, 2025 by 1:00 p.m. CT

Program Overview

The goal of this RFA is to improve the way that scientific discoveries turn into new solutions for human health. By streamlining the process of translation, new innovations will reach more people, more quickly and have a greater impact on human health. 

Translating scientific discoveries is a complex journey and can vary by type of innovation and intended use. However, there are common challenges that researchers face including progressing through stages of development and testing and getting to real-world use/impact. These bottlenecks make the process slow, expensive, frustrating, and delay or prevent promising new solutions from reaching the people who need them most.

This RFA is intended to support projects that aim to understand and address these common translational roadblocks. Projects are expected to develop generalizable principles or solutions that can be broadly applied to the process of translation across multiple use cases (indications, therapeutic areas, innovations, organizations and contexts).

Competitive projects will:

1. Identify a challenge or opportunity: Clearly define a specific scientific or operational challenge that researchers encounter during the process of translation. Provide evidence to support or validate the identified challenge. This should not be a problem category (e.g. clinical trial recruitment) but rather the specific challenge being addressed.
2. Propose a pilot study: Design a study to better understand the roadblock or find innovative solutions that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the path to translation. Typically these are early-stage, feasibility or proof-of-concept studies to demonstrate how the project could impact the process of translation.
3. Plan for broad application: Describe how key insights or solutions from the project can be generally applied to impact the process of translation. How can others (e.g. researchers, clinicians, stakeholders, etc.) utilize them to improve their own translational research or clinical practices? For projects focused on a specific use case, describe how it can be more broadly applied to other use cases.     

Award Information

• Up to 4 awards issued per year.
• Awards are not to exceed $50,000 direct costs each for one year. Consideration will be given to the justification of project expenses when reviewing proposed budgets.
• Awarded projects involving human subjects and/or live vertebrate animals must receive approval from the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) prior to starting the project. This may impact the project start date.
• Per NIH/NCATS guidelines, projects must be completed within the 12-month project period. No Cost Extensions will not be available.
• Awards are for direct costs only (NIH allowable direct costs)

Project Eligibility

Responsive types of projects may include, but are not limited to: 

Research Efficiency: Identify, understand or address roadblocks that limit the ability to develop, test, and deliver new innovations, treatments, and interventions.   

Dissemination and Implementation: Identify, understand or address challenges that prevent new scientific discoveries, innovations and interventions from reaching patients and innovators.    

More specific project examples may include, but are not limited to those that aim to: 

• Create new methods, models, or tools to develop therapeutics more quickly (e.g. toxicity testing, dose response predictions, models that mimic human physiology, etc.).
• Develop tools, methods, or approaches to improve clinical trial operations (e.g. patient identification, recruitment, enrollment and communication strategies, data analyses, trial designs, etc.).
• Use health informatics to develop approaches or models to support research and operations or to improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes (e.g. clinical decision support tools, electronic medical records, etc.).
• Understand and identify common challenges encountered by innovators developing new healthcare innovations.
• Develop methods to increase the adoption of new therapeutic approaches and interventions.
• Test strategies to help innovators successfully develop and translate new health care innovations.
• Develop tools, methods or strategies to improve engagement and communication among patients, providers and innovators.

Applicants are encouraged to incorporate key stakeholder (patient, provider, innovator, etc.) perspectives into their proposed project plan. For example:

• Projects that aim to increase provider adoption are encouraged to seek input from the providers.
• Projects that aim to develop tools for patient education are encouraged to seek input from patient users. 

For more specific examples of eligible project types see the FAQs.

This program is not intended to support:

• Projects focused on studying or developing a solution for a specific disease that is not more broadly applicable to the treatment of other diseases or the process of translation.
• Basic, discovery science projects, or translational research projects focused on crossing a particular step of the translational process for a particular target or disease. 

Applicant Eligibility

All full-time faculty, staff, or researchers at the UMN (system-wide, all campuses) such as professors, instructors, clinician scientists, fellows, post-docs, etc. may serve as the Principal Investigator. Full-time staff or researchers at affiliated sites: VA, Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute, HealthPartners, and Children’s of Minnesota with a UMN appointment are also eligible to serve as Principal Investigator. For questions about eligibility, contact the ODAT office at [email protected].

Application Process

Proposals must be submitted online through the Turning Science into Health: Improving the Innovation Process proposal submission form in InfoReady.

The online proposal submission form will request information related to the translational roadblock being addressed, a description of the project, and details related to the work plan, project team, estimated budget and timeline. 

Specific requirements include:

• What is the translational challenge that you are trying to identify, understand or address?
• Briefly describe the project and how it will relate to the translational challenge?
• What impact will the project have on the process of translation (e.g. better, cheaper, and/or faster progression of translational development stages — discovery to preclinical to clinical to human health)? How can the solution be applied to more broadly impact research?
• How does your proposed project aim to establish generalizable principles that can be applied broadly to accelerate translational science? (e.g. How can others use them in their own research and practices? How can they be applied outside the study-specific organization/department or disease setting)?
• What is your plan to disseminate novel insights gained by this project (e.g. how will the people that need to know this new information gain access to it) or implement strategies to improve the process of translation (e.g. training, dissemination of new technology, etc.)?
• What work has been done to support the project so far (if applicable)? No pilot data is necessary, however supporting data from the recent literature is appropriate if available.
• Describe the work plan, including milestones to be achieved and final result of the project (within one year and up to $50,000 in direct costs). Include a visual/figure to show the anticipated timing for aim/milestone completion over the duration of the project. Note that projects may be funded at a lower amount than the budget requested.
• How does the proposed scope of work fit within the overall plan to advance this project towards real-world use and/or impact (e.g. after this project is complete, what are the immediate next steps to continue the project)?
• If the project includes a new technology, has it been disclosed to Tech Comm and is there any intellectual property associated with it?
• Complete the provided budget template with justification (direct expenses only; no indirect costs are allowed)
• List any current or pending funding related to this project (both sponsored and unsponsored). Include the source, funding amount, award period and whether there is any overlap in the work/aims to be completed in the proposed project.
• Who are the team members and what are their qualifications, roles, and responsibilities?
• What is the current stage of human subjects, IRB approval and/or live vertebrate animals, IACUC approval, including approval dates and numbers (if applicable)?
• CV/Biosketches for Principal Investigator(s)
• References/citations

Iterative Review Process

Applicants will be asked to engage in an iterative review and interactive award management processes designed to provide ongoing support and guidance to researchers in order to facilitate refinement and optimization of research projects. 

Proposals will undergo assessment of alignment with the goals of the RFA, impact, and feasibility. The assessment process may include review by external experts operating under a confidentiality agreement. Applicants may be asked to respond to questions raised during proposal review. Applicants selected for funding may be asked to make appropriate revisions to their work plan reflecting feedback from reviewers.

Award amounts are determined on a project-by-project basis depending on what is needed to advance the project. Awards will not exceed $50,000 total direct costs with a funding period of one year. Request only the amount that is needed. Project review will strongly consider if funds are being requested for only the work critical to advance the project, and projects selected for funding may be awarded a lower amount than the budget requested. No indirect costs are allowed. For more details on the interactive award management process, see the section on Funding Period Collaboration with ODAT below. 

Review Criteria

• Is the intention of the proposal sufficiently clear?
• Does the project address the identification and understanding of translational challenges or innovations to overcome translational challenges?
• Will the project lead to key insights that can be applied to the process of translation broadly?
• What is the overall potential for impact on the process of translation?
• Will the plan for broader application lead to impact for intended real-world use?
• Does the proposed scope of work optimize the potential for successful outcomes?
• Does the team include essential collaborators with the necessary, cross-disciplinary skills for successful execution of the project plan?
• Is the project feasible? Can the proposed work plan be completed within the award timeframe and budget (12 months and <$50,000)?

NIH NCATS Prior Approval 

Awarded projects involving human subjects and/or live vertebrate animals must receive approval from NCATS prior to starting the project. Regulatory documents for projects requiring regulatory approvals (e.g. IACUC, IRB, FDA) must be submitted to the appropriate regulatory authority within one month of award notification. ODAT will work with awardees to ensure regulatory and prior approval requirements are met and documentation is submitted. Failure to obtain NCATS Prior Approval and/or delays in regulatory approvals may result in revocation of award.

Funding Period Collaboration with ODAT

Grantees are required to attend a program kick off meeting with ODAT. Awarded funds must be used to conduct the work proposed. All direct charges to this award must adhere to federal regulations and requirements regarding the use of CTSA funds. ODAT reserves the right to revoke funding if it is determined that funds were not spent in accordance with the approved work plan. 

As part of the interactive award management process, grantees will be asked to provide periodic updates to ODAT following initiation of the award. PIs are encouraged to actively engage with their ODAT Program Management Team to seek advice and assistance, as needed. The ODAT Program Management Team may work in collaboration with the PI to solicit the expertise of additional UMN faculty or staff or external experts to support successful completion of the project. If any significant issues arise, the study team will be required to work with ODAT to determine solutions so that the study can be successfully completed (or, in rare cases, terminated). Advancement of the project will be tracked following the conclusion of funding. 

Expected Outcomes

Upon completion of the project, Grantees are expected to provide a final report detailing:

• The results of the project, whether specific aims/objectives were achieved, and the impact on understanding or addressing translational roadblocks.
• How the results will be implemented and/or disseminated.
• Additional funding obtained or applications submitted to continue the project, including external investments.
• Publications or submitted manuscripts directly related to the project.
• Intellectual property (disclosures, patent applications or published patents) directly related to the project.
• Significant collaborations that resulted from the project.
• Dissemination and implementation of the work beyond UMN or the academic setting (e.g. real world use).
• Any commercial outcomes (e.g. start up company, licensing agreements). Outcomes will be tracked for a minimum of 5 years after completion of the project and grantees are expected to provide updates throughout this 5 year period.

RFA Timeline