Special Topic Research Education Course: Exploring Auditory and Vestibular Biology (R25 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA DC 20 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DC 20 001

This NIH opportunity, run through the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), funds a research education course focused on auditory and vestibular biology under the R25 mechanism (research education programs). The main aim is educational rather than funding a traditional research project: it supports structured training activities that help participants better understand biomedical research approaches, tools, and the real-world implications of discoveries related to hearing and balance. The program is explicitly "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," meaning the supported activities are not intended to run or test clinical interventions in human subjects as clinical trials.

The scientific motivation behind the course is that hearing and balance depend on intricate inner ear and neural processes, and those processes can be disrupted by genetic causes, environmental exposures, and pathogens. While hearing or balance loss is often not life-threatening, NIDCD highlights that it can dramatically affect day-to-day functioning and quality of life. By improving research education in this area, the institute is trying to accelerate progress in methods and technologies that can ultimately contribute to better, faster, and more implementable treatments for auditory and vestibular disorders.

NIDCD bases this initiative on a long-running model course it has supported since 2007: a 2 to 3 week intensive program called Biology of the Inner Ear, historically held at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. That prior course is described as faculty-rich and hands-on, bringing together expert instructors and giving trainees direct exposure to experimental approaches. The current funding opportunity invites applications that follow that template of excellence by proposing a comparable special-topics course in the auditory and vestibular sciences, combining lectures with practical, research-oriented experiences.

The award is structured as a five-year initiative intended to sustain three separate offerings of the course, specifically in the years 2021, 2023, and 2025. In other words, applicants are proposing an education program that will run intermittently across the project period, rather than a single one-time event, with the expectation that each course offering provides concentrated instruction and laboratory or research exposure aligned with the latest approaches in the field.

The target participant audience is clearly defined: advanced graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-stage research investigators who are already positioned to benefit from intensive methodological and conceptual training and then carry those skills back into their labs and career development. The emphasis is on building research capability in the auditory and vestibular space, not general public education or entry-level instruction.

Eligibility is broad across U.S.-based organizations. Eligible applicants include a wide range of government entities (state, county, city or township, special district), independent school districts, public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, federally recognized Native American tribal governments, other tribal organizations, public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), small businesses, and other eligible entities. The notice also calls out additional eligible categories such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISISs), as well as faith-based or community-based organizations and certain regional organizations. At the same time, it is restrictive regarding non-U.S. involvement: non-domestic (non-U.S.) institutions are not eligible to apply, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible, and foreign components (as NIH defines them) are not allowed.

Administratively, this is a discretionary grant opportunity from the National Institutes of Health with Funding Opportunity Number RFA-DC-20-001 and CFDA 93.173. The opportunity was created on March 23, 2020, with an original closing date of June 28, 2020. The listing does not specify an award ceiling or the expected number of awards in the provided text, so applicants would need to consult the full funding announcement for budget limits, allowable costs, review criteria, and required course structure and evaluation plans.

Overall, the opportunity is designed to keep a high-impact, short-duration, immersive training course alive over multiple years, strengthening the pipeline of researchers and research-ready investigators in hearing and balance science by giving them concentrated exposure to cutting-edge concepts, experimental systems, and techniques in auditory and vestibular biology.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Special Topic Research Education Course: Exploring Auditory and Vestibular Biology (R25 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.173.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2020-03-23.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2020-06-28. (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 RFA DC 20 001

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