DoD Lung Cancer, Idea Development Award | W81XWH 20 LCRP IDA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 20 LCRP IDA

The DoD Lung Cancer Research Program (LCRP) Idea Development Award (FY20) is designed to push forward fresh, early-stage lung cancer research concepts that are not yet fully developed but are promising enough to open new directions in the field. The core purpose is to fund conceptually innovative, high-risk/high-reward projects that could generate impactful data, produce critical discoveries, or lead to major advances that speed progress toward reducing deaths and suffering from lung cancer. Projects are expected to be grounded in a well-formulated, testable hypothesis supported by a strong scientific rationale, so the program is looking for bold ideas that still have a clear plan for how they will be tested.

A major emphasis of this opportunity is on innovation and impact. Innovation can mean proposing a new paradigm, challenging existing assumptions, or approaching a familiar problem from a genuinely new angle. Impact means the work has a strong chance of meaningfully advancing lung cancer research and accelerating progress in ways that could ultimately matter for patients, even if direct clinical benefits are not immediate within the award period. Applicants are expected to clearly explain, in plain terms, what makes their approach innovative and why it could move the field forward. Importantly, proposals that are scientifically strong but do not convincingly demonstrate innovation and high potential impact are considered outside the intent of this mechanism.

The program encourages collaboration with, and submissions involving, Department of Defense military treatment facilities and laboratories as well as Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers and research laboratories. This reflects an interest in relevance to Military Health System beneficiaries and in leveraging the unique clinical and research environments within DoD and VA settings. Applicants should explicitly connect the proposed work to lung cancer and explain its relevance to the military and veteran populations where appropriate, rather than treating that connection as implied.

This funding opportunity also includes a specific pathway for early-career researchers through a New Investigator category. New Investigators are generally defined as independent investigators within 10 years of their first faculty appointment (or equivalent). The New Investigator track is meant to let early-career faculty compete separately from more established investigators, and the peer and programmatic reviews are conducted separately for New Investigators versus Established Investigators. New Investigators are strongly encouraged to partner with collaborators who bring lung cancer expertise or other key capabilities, and the application must spell out how those collaborations fill gaps in the principal investigator's experience and strengthen the project overall. Eligibility requirements for the New Investigator category are specific and must be met as described in the formal eligibility section of the announcement.

While this mechanism supports ideas in early development, it still requires preliminary data to demonstrate feasibility of the hypothesis and approach. The preliminary data do not have to come directly from lung cancer studies, meaning investigators can leverage related models, methods, or findings from adjacent fields as long as they credibly support the proposed work. The overall message is that the DoD wants ambitious, creative lung cancer research proposals that are early-stage but not speculative in a vague sense: the project should be innovative, feasible, and positioned to generate meaningful advances.

Administratively, this is a discretionary DoD opportunity managed by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA), listed under Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-20-LCRP-IDA and CFDA 12.420. The funding instruments include grants and cooperative agreements, eligibility is broadly unrestricted by entity type (subject to any clarifications in the full announcement), and the FY20 posting indicated an expected six awards. The original application window for the FY20 cycle opened in March 2020 and closed in late July 2020, reflecting the timeline for that specific year of funding.

• 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 Lung Cancer, Idea Development 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 Mar 12, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 29, 2020. (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 6 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 20 LCRP IDA

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