Defense Health Program Department of Defense Hearing Restoration Research Program Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20)

How to Apply: 

The FY20 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding to the Department of Defense Hearing Restoration Research Program (HRRP) to support promising, necessary research for treatment of burdensome and very prevalent auditory system injury.  As directed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Defense Health Agency J9, Research and Development Directorate, manages the Defense Health Program (DHP) Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) appropriation.  The managing agent for the anticipated Program Announcements/Funding Opportunities is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC).

 

The FY20 HRRP Program Announcement and General Application Instructions for the following award mechanism will be posted on the Grants.gov website.   

 

Applications submitted to the FY20 HRRP must address one or more of the following Focus Areas:

 

  • Accelerate translation of biological regeneration/repair mechanisms into therapies that treat auditory system injury and restore auditory function.  For example, but not limited to:
    • Hair cell regeneration/repair/recovery
    • Neural regeneration/repair/recovery
    • Treatment for synaptopathy and hidden hearing loss
  • Diagnostic tests that help differentiate sensory, neural, synaptic, and central processing disorders, that may inform applicability and outcomes for current or future hearing restoration therapeutics.
  • Develop reliable in-vitro human models to facilitate the understanding, derivation and characterization of human auditory cells, and/or to facilitate the evaluation of hearing restoration therapies.
  • Develop and/or validate techniques/methods beyond the audiogram to diagnose acute auditory system injury in austere or remote environments.  For example, but not limited to, simple and rapid assessments that are compatible with portable platforms.

 

https://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/hrrp

 

Focused Research Award – Preproposal due July 14, 2020

Independent investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent)

  • Preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.
  • Supports promising research that will accelerate drug discovery and therapeutic development for hearing restoration or accelerate advances in the assessment, diagnostics, and treatment of auditory dysfunction.
  • Must address one or more of the FY20 HRRP Focus Areas.
  • Funding Level 1 supports exploratory, high-risk/high-reward research in the earliest stages of development.
  • Funding Level 2 supports the advancement of more mature research toward clinical translation.
  • Funding Level 2 may include a pilot clinical trial component where limited clinical testing of a novel intervention is conducted to inform the feasibility, rationale, and design of subsequent clinical trials.
  • It is the responsibility of the applicant to select the funding level that is most appropriate for the research proposed.  The funding level should be selected based on the stage and maturity of the research, rather than the amount of the budget.
  • Tinnitus or vestibular-related research is excluded.

Funding Level 1:

  • Maximum funding of $250,000 for direct costs (plus indirect costs)
    • The maximum period of performance is 2 years.

Funding Level 2:

  • Maximum funding of $1,000,000 for direct costs (plus indirect costs)
    • The maximum period of performance is 3 years.

Funding Level 2 with Pilot Clinical Trial Option:

  • Maximum funding of $1.250,000 for direct costs (plus indirect costs)
  • The maximum period of performance is 3 years.

 

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal (eBRAP) at https://eBRAP.org prior to the pre-application deadline.  All applications must conform to the final Program Announcements and General Application Instructions available for electronic downloading from the Grants.gov website.  The application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on Grants.gov.  A listing of all CDMRP and other USAMRDC extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using CFDA Number 12.420. 

 

For email notification when Program Announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “Email Subscriptions” on the eBRAP homepage at https://eBRAP.org.  For more information about the HRRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (https://cdmrp.army.mil).

 

Point of Contact:

CDMRP Help Desk
301-682-5507
help@eBrap.org

External Deadline: 
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
URL: 

https://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/hrrp

Agency: 
Department of Defense
Funding Source: 
External
Funding Level: 
Research