Slots: Only one NCMRR ECR Award (R03) application may be submitted as a single PD/PI or one of Multiple PDs/PIs per due date.
Deadlines
Internal Deadline: Friday, January 10th, 2025, 5pm PT
LOI: N/A
External Deadline: February 16, 2025
Recurring Deadlines: June 16, 2025; October 16, 2025; February 16, 2026; June 16, 2026; October 16, 2026; February 16, 2027; June 16, 2027; October 16, 2027
Award Information
Award Type: Grant
Estimated Number of Awards and Award Amount: The number of awards is contingent upon NIH appropriations and the submission of a sufficient number of meritorious applications
Who May Serve as PI: This NOFO targets Early Career Investigators interested in rehabilitation research. The PD/PI must be an independent investigator, not a postdoctoral fellow, at the time of submission. The PD/PI must be no more than 8 years beyond the date that the first professional, advanced professional, or terminal academic degree was awarded, whichever is most recent. The 8-year eligibility period will be calculated based on the MM/DD/YYYY the degree was awarded and the published application receipt date, regardless of whether it is a new or resubmission application. Attainment of an additional Master’s degree after receipt of a doctoral level degree does not extend the timeline. Formal years of clinical training (Internship, Residency, and Fellowship) are not counted as part of the 8-year limit. The exemption of years for clinical training is not limited to physicians.
Recipients of the Federally-funded National Research Service Award fellowships and traineeships (i.e. F- and T- series awards) or mentored career development awards (i.e. K awards) are eligible for the NCMRR ECR Award grant program, provided there is no overlap in professional commitment or budget.
The following are NOT Eligible:
- Individuals who, at the time of submission, have served as PD/PI on a peer-reviewed NIH research award (R series) over $100,000 direct costs per year or non-NIH research grants over $150,000 total costs per year,
- Project Leaders on sub-projects of NIH program project (P01) or center (P50) grants or the equivalent
- Recipients of the NIH K99/R00 award
For Multi-PI applications, all of the PDs/PIs must meet the above eligibility criteria.
Link to Award: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-25-124.html
Process for Limited Submissions
PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Research Initiatives and Infrastructure (RII) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/. Use the template provided here: RII Limited Submission Applicant Template
Materials to submit include:
- (1) Two-Page Proposal Summary (1” margins; single-spaced; standard font type, e.g. Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 2-page limit will be excluded from review. You must use the template linked above.
- (2) CV – (5 pages maximum)
Note: The portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.
Purpose
The NCMRR Early Career Research (ECR) Award is different from other NIH R03 programs, including the Parent R03 Announcement (PA-20-200) . It is restricted to clinical and basic scientists who are in the early stages of their independent career in rehabilitation research. For projects supported by an ECR R03 Award, successful results should provide a solid foundation for further research under the R01 funding mechanism.
Given that the goal is to collect preliminary data, R03 projects may be less immediately impactful or significant compared to the typical R01 or other NIH-funded projects. It is not an expectation that this R03 project will likely “move the field forward” at this stage.
The research must be focused on one or more of the areas within the biomedical and behavioral mission of NCMRR: pathophysiology and management of chronically injured nervous and musculoskeletal systems (including stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and orthopedic conditions); repair and recovery of motor function; functional plasticity, adaptation, and windows of opportunity for rehabilitative interventions; rehabilitative strategies involving pharmaceutical, stimulation, and neuroengineering approaches, exercise, motor training, and behavioral modifications; pediatric rehabilitation; secondary conditions associated with chronic disabilities; improved diagnosis, assessment, and outcome measures; and development of orthotics, prosthetics, and other assistive technologies and devices.
The proposed project may be technology design-directed, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven with the goal of collecting the necessary preliminary data sufficient to apply for an R01 grant. The project may aid in the formulation of hypotheses and may be milestone-driven or descriptive in scope.
Preliminary data are not required or expected. However, if available, preliminary data are allowed.
A 1-page attachment titled “Plan for Inclusion of People with Lived Experience” must be included with the application or the application will be withdrawn prior to review. (see Section IV; further below). The Plan will be assessed as part of the scientific and technical peer review evaluation, as well as at the programmatic level with respect to funding decisions.
Investigators proposing clinical research are encouraged to use the common data elements (CDEs) (https://cde.nlm.nih.gov/home) or justify not using CDEs for rehabilitation if they are not included.
For those applications that generate clinical data, investigators are encouraged to share data via the NICHD DASH (data and specimen hub) Center (https://dash.nichd.nih.gov/).
Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the Scientific/Research contact for this NOFO for guidance in advance of submitting an application to ensure their proposed project is in compliance with new NIH human subjects research and clinical trials policies (https://grants.nih.gov/policy/clinical-trials.htm) and consistent with the types of clinical trial projects that NCMRR supports.
Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.