DoD Prostate Cancer, Health Equity Research and Outcomes Improvement Consortium Award | W81XWH 21 PCRP HEROICA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 21 PCRP HEROICA

The DoD Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) Health Equity Research and Outcomes Improvement Consortium (HEROIC) Award is a Department of Defense funding opportunity designed to build and support a coordinated, multi-institutional research consortium focused on big, practice-relevant prostate cancer problems where collaboration and translation are essential. The central idea is to bring together multiple research teams across at least three institutions, align them under a shared hypothesis and strategy, and generate work that can meaningfully improve real-world outcomes for people affected by prostate cancer, including Service Members, Veterans, military beneficiaries, and the broader public. The mechanism emphasizes synergy: instead of a single lab or clinic working in isolation, the program is looking for a tightly connected set of projects that reinforce each other and are managed as one integrated effort.

Applicants must anchor their proposed consortium in one or both of the FY21 PCRP Overarching Challenges. The first challenge is improving quality of life to enhance outcomes and overall health and wellness for those impacted by prostate cancer. In practice, this means research that digs into how prostate cancer and its treatments affect not only the patient, but also families, caregivers, and communities, with attention to both short- and long-term outcomes. The announcement highlights topics like mental and emotional health, how quality-of-life considerations shape decision-making after diagnosis or treatment, identifying groups at higher risk of serious quality-of-life declines, and translating insights into interventions or actionable approaches that measurably improve health and wellness. The second challenge is advancing health equity and reducing disparities in prostate cancer, with a clear expectation that proposed work directly improves understanding of inequities and/or contributes to their reduction across the prevention-to-survivorship continuum. Disparities can be tied to socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, geography, environment, lifestyle, sexual and gender identity, and access to care in rural or urban settings, among other factors. The opportunity explicitly calls out high-risk groups such as people of African descent (including Caribbean), genetically predisposed populations, Service Members, and Veterans, and underserved groups such as men with limited access to clinical care/resources and sexual and gender minorities.

A defining requirement is the consortium structure and leadership model. Each application must name four to six research teams total: one team led by a Consortium Director plus three to five additional teams led by Research Team Principal Investigators. The Consortium Director is expected to have a track record managing complex, multi-institutional research and to create a working environment that supports translational progress while still encouraging innovation. The consortium should include leading scientists and/or clinicians with expertise relevant to prostate cancer, disparities, survivorship, or other key disciplines needed to address the proposal theme, and the program encourages new collaborations, early-career investigators, nontraditional disciplines, and epidemiology/public health expertise when they strengthen the approach.

Patient voice is built into the design through a required prostate cancer consumer advocate. At least one consumer advocate must be included and must be meaningfully involved in every aspect of the consortium: conception, design, ongoing discussions, oversight and decision-making, evaluation, and public-facing dissemination. The intent is not symbolic representation; the consumer advocate is expected to be integrated into leadership and governance structures (for example, steering committees or advisory boards) and to participate consistently in consortium meetings and project-level work so the research stays grounded in patient and community priorities.

Funding is structured in two phases, with phase 1 focused on building the consortium and generating proof-of-concept data, and phase 2 intended to support the full, multi-project research program. Phase 1 provides resources to stand up essential consortium infrastructure and run pilot studies that demonstrate feasibility and generate preliminary data needed for a more expansive phase 2 effort. Infrastructure development in phase 1 can include formalizing collaborations and governance, developing administrative/management and communication plans, establishing an intellectual property plan, acquiring cohorts/datasets/resources, preparing plans for sharing data and/or biospecimens beyond the consortium, and drafting IRB-related documents and informed consent materials when applicable. Phase 1 also requires that the application describe the pilot projects to be conducted; these pilots are expected to support the central hypothesis and show the research direction is workable. Clinical trials are not allowed under this mechanism. Applicants must include a statistical plan with a preliminary power analysis when relevant, and the expectation is that the analysis and overall plan will be refined using pilot results when competing for phase 2.

Phase 2, anticipated for FY23, is described up front so teams can plan intelligently, but it remains contingent on future appropriations. Only phase 1 awardees would be eligible to compete for phase 2, and the program states an intent to fund all successful phase 1 performers into phase 2 if funds are available and phase 1 goals are met. Phase 2 would support multiple parallel projects that build directly on phase 1 preliminary data and aim for major impact on health equity, disparity reduction, and/or quality-of-life improvement. The program pushes for translational work spanning preclinical to clinical studies with a strong emphasis on near-term patient benefit, and it encourages multidisciplinary approaches and the inclusion of additional pilot projects in phase 2 to seed new, high-potential ideas aligned to the central hypothesis.

In terms of budget and scale, the phase 1 consortium direct costs for the full period of performance are capped at $2.70 million (combined across the Consortium Director and Research Team PI awards). The DoD planned to allocate about $12.96 million total to fund roughly three phase 1 consortia. For phase 2, the anticipated combined direct costs cap is up to $10 million total over four years for the entire consortium, though that phase is explicitly subject to availability of FY23 funds. Awards are issued as assistance agreements, meaning they may be grants or cooperative agreements depending on how much substantial involvement the DoD anticipates during performance (with cooperative agreements used when the agency expects active collaboration/participation/intervention). The opportunity was released by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army (USAMRAA), under CFDA 12.420, with an original application closing date of July 29, 2021, and awards expected no later than September 30, 2022.

Finally, applicants proposing work involving human subjects, human anatomical substances, or human cadavers must plan for DoD-specific human research protection review. In addition to local IRB/ethics approvals, projects require review and approval by the USAMRDC Office of Research Protections/Human Research Protection Office (HRPO) before research can begin, and teams are advised to budget at least 2 to 3 months for that regulatory review. The program also signals an expectation that data, information, and research resources generated with HEROIC funds be made broadly available to the research and advocacy communities and the public, consistent with CDMRP sharing guidance.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Prostate Cancer, Health Equity Research and Outcomes Improvement Consortium Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 08, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 29, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 3 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 21 PCRP HEROICA

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